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An Englishman abroad: All the Panama players want to be in Gary Stempel's gang
By Matt Barlow Last updated at 1:55 AM on 06th October 2008Whatever problems Fabio Capello might encounter this week, they are unlikely to involve gang violence, death threats and social deprivation.
Capello's brief does not extend to rescuing his players from lives of crime and certainly not from the clutches of extreme poverty.
In fact, he has very little in common with Gary Stempel - but they are both managers of international football teams and they'll both be out of work if they lose too many games.
Newspaper boy: Luis 'Coco' Henriquez (left) shoots past Chile's Gonzalo Jara during a friendly in Valparaiso in June
More...
Stempel, 51, hails from East Finchley, is the manager of Panama and one of several British coaches overseas.
He has worked in Central American football for more than a decade and replaced Alexandre Guimaraes as Panama boss in July after they lost in the CONCACAF World Cup preliminary qualifying round for 2010.
Guimaraes was sacked after a stormy defeat in El Salvador when rocks, bottles and bags of urine were thrown at the Panama players and their team bus was attacked.
Stempel is familiar with the barrage of unsavoury missiles from the terraces. 'I've had that before,' he said, thinking of his six months at El Salvador club Aguila.
'You're lucky it's nothing worse. If you lose two games in a row, which I did, you get death threats from the gangs.'
Gary Stempel: born in London's East Finchley, his current job as Panama coach obliges him to deal with drug gangs - and worse
Mara Salvatrucha and Mara 18, among the most feared gangs, have a stranglehold on all Salvadoran society, including football.
Gang culture exists to a lesser extent in Panama, a country of financial extremes. It is a wealthy centre for banking and commerce but also a major drugs centre, sharing a border with Colombia, and suffers serious social problems.
'The footballers here are streetkids and every one of them has a dysfunctional character,' said Stempel, who helped establish Millwall's ground-breaking 'Football in the Community' scheme in the Eighties.
'Some of my players don't know who their dad is. Some have mothers in jail and work two or three jobs around training to provide for their brothers and sisters.'
Stempel, the son of a Panamanian professional baseball player, is already a successful coach, despite a lack of playing experience at even non-league level.
He has won four Panama League titles with San Francisco FC and reached the group stages of the CONCACAF Champions League for the first time this year.
He led the national Under-20 team to the World Cup in 2003, the first time this baseball-crazy nation had made the finals of a global football event.
His real success stories, though, are ones such as Luis 'Coco' Henriquez, who used to sell newspapers on the streets.
'I'd drop my daughter off at school and buy a paper from him,' said Stempel. 'He knew I was in charge of the Under-23 Olympic team at the time, so he always asked for a chance to play.
'I'd tell him to come along to training but he never turned up. This is classic Panamanian. When I asked why, he said he had no money. I gave him 10 bucks and made him promise to turn up and make sure he'd eaten something.
'He came along and did really well. To make sure he kept coming I'd give him money for transport.'
Henriquez went on to find a club, graduated to the national team and now plays in Poland for Lech Poznan. His wages dwarf the £2,000 a year earned by the top players in Panama, where football remains semi-professional.
Another is Jose Garces, a striker known as 'The Gunman' because of his criminal past in the gangs.
Stempel encountered him in the Panama youth ranks and again at San Francisco FC, when the club supported Garces through six months in jail on a shooting charge which was finally thrown out.
In prison, Garces found religion, cut his ties with the gangs and focused on his football. Now he plays for Academica de Coimbra in Portugal.
'These stories give you more satisfaction as a coach than winning a tournament,' said Stempel. 'There's a human value to them which is far greater than a sporting result.'
OTHER BRITONS ABROAD
BOBBY WILLIAMSON (Uganda)
Took over his new country in August and started with a 3-1 defeat to Niger in a World Cup/ Africa Cup of Nations qualifier.
BOBBY HOUGHTON (India)
Won AFC Challenge Cup to qualify for 2011 Asian Cup. Contract expires in June but they want him to stay.
PETER REID (Thailand)
Started last month. His first target
is the ASEAN championship, which is held every two years in south-east Asia.
The League Managers' Association, together with the Professional Football Coaches Association, want to establish a register for their members, so clubs and FAs around the world can quickly access a list of candidates.
The British coach remains in demand in many countries, despite the tendency for the top jobs in England to be filled by foreign coaches.
Former Plymouth boss Bobby Williamson is in charge of Uganda and Peter Reid is manager of Thailand. Stempel, however, warned that anyone attracted to coaching in the Third World might find himself operating as a part-time social worker.
'The part I enjoy most is helping to change people's lives through football and this should be one of the main motives for any British coach who wants to work abroad in a place like this,' he said.
'They will get so much more out of the job than if they go to just get results. Yes, there's coaching to be done but it has to be done as part of a social education programme.'
Stempel's first game in charge of Panama was a 1-0 defeat in a friendly in Bolivia last month. With the World Cup campaign already over, his first big test will be the Central American Cup of Nations, hosted by Panama in January. The first three qualify for next year's CONCACAF Gold Cup.
'It's a huge job,' said Stempel. 'We used to get beat 6-0 by Costa Rica, now we can beat them.
'The Panamanian people are proud of their flag and I am under pressure to get results from the media and fans. After a bad result, the crowd get at you and throw things at you.'
At last, something Capello can associate with.
Explore more:
Places: Panama
By Matt Barlow Last updated at 1:55 AM on 06th October 2008Whatever problems Fabio Capello might encounter this week, they are unlikely to involve gang violence, death threats and social deprivation.
Capello's brief does not extend to rescuing his players from lives of crime and certainly not from the clutches of extreme poverty.
In fact, he has very little in common with Gary Stempel - but they are both managers of international football teams and they'll both be out of work if they lose too many games.
Newspaper boy: Luis 'Coco' Henriquez (left) shoots past Chile's Gonzalo Jara during a friendly in Valparaiso in June
More...
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Stempel, 51, hails from East Finchley, is the manager of Panama and one of several British coaches overseas.
He has worked in Central American football for more than a decade and replaced Alexandre Guimaraes as Panama boss in July after they lost in the CONCACAF World Cup preliminary qualifying round for 2010.
Guimaraes was sacked after a stormy defeat in El Salvador when rocks, bottles and bags of urine were thrown at the Panama players and their team bus was attacked.
Stempel is familiar with the barrage of unsavoury missiles from the terraces. 'I've had that before,' he said, thinking of his six months at El Salvador club Aguila.
'You're lucky it's nothing worse. If you lose two games in a row, which I did, you get death threats from the gangs.'
Gary Stempel: born in London's East Finchley, his current job as Panama coach obliges him to deal with drug gangs - and worseMara Salvatrucha and Mara 18, among the most feared gangs, have a stranglehold on all Salvadoran society, including football.
Gang culture exists to a lesser extent in Panama, a country of financial extremes. It is a wealthy centre for banking and commerce but also a major drugs centre, sharing a border with Colombia, and suffers serious social problems.
'The footballers here are streetkids and every one of them has a dysfunctional character,' said Stempel, who helped establish Millwall's ground-breaking 'Football in the Community' scheme in the Eighties.
'Some of my players don't know who their dad is. Some have mothers in jail and work two or three jobs around training to provide for their brothers and sisters.'
Stempel, the son of a Panamanian professional baseball player, is already a successful coach, despite a lack of playing experience at even non-league level.
He has won four Panama League titles with San Francisco FC and reached the group stages of the CONCACAF Champions League for the first time this year.
He led the national Under-20 team to the World Cup in 2003, the first time this baseball-crazy nation had made the finals of a global football event.
His real success stories, though, are ones such as Luis 'Coco' Henriquez, who used to sell newspapers on the streets.
'I'd drop my daughter off at school and buy a paper from him,' said Stempel. 'He knew I was in charge of the Under-23 Olympic team at the time, so he always asked for a chance to play.
'I'd tell him to come along to training but he never turned up. This is classic Panamanian. When I asked why, he said he had no money. I gave him 10 bucks and made him promise to turn up and make sure he'd eaten something.
'He came along and did really well. To make sure he kept coming I'd give him money for transport.'
Henriquez went on to find a club, graduated to the national team and now plays in Poland for Lech Poznan. His wages dwarf the £2,000 a year earned by the top players in Panama, where football remains semi-professional.
Another is Jose Garces, a striker known as 'The Gunman' because of his criminal past in the gangs.
Stempel encountered him in the Panama youth ranks and again at San Francisco FC, when the club supported Garces through six months in jail on a shooting charge which was finally thrown out.
In prison, Garces found religion, cut his ties with the gangs and focused on his football. Now he plays for Academica de Coimbra in Portugal.
'These stories give you more satisfaction as a coach than winning a tournament,' said Stempel. 'There's a human value to them which is far greater than a sporting result.'
OTHER BRITONS ABROAD
BOBBY WILLIAMSON (Uganda)
Took over his new country in August and started with a 3-1 defeat to Niger in a World Cup/ Africa Cup of Nations qualifier.
BOBBY HOUGHTON (India)
Won AFC Challenge Cup to qualify for 2011 Asian Cup. Contract expires in June but they want him to stay.
PETER REID (Thailand)
Started last month. His first target
is the ASEAN championship, which is held every two years in south-east Asia.
The League Managers' Association, together with the Professional Football Coaches Association, want to establish a register for their members, so clubs and FAs around the world can quickly access a list of candidates.
The British coach remains in demand in many countries, despite the tendency for the top jobs in England to be filled by foreign coaches.
Former Plymouth boss Bobby Williamson is in charge of Uganda and Peter Reid is manager of Thailand. Stempel, however, warned that anyone attracted to coaching in the Third World might find himself operating as a part-time social worker.
'The part I enjoy most is helping to change people's lives through football and this should be one of the main motives for any British coach who wants to work abroad in a place like this,' he said.
'They will get so much more out of the job than if they go to just get results. Yes, there's coaching to be done but it has to be done as part of a social education programme.'
Stempel's first game in charge of Panama was a 1-0 defeat in a friendly in Bolivia last month. With the World Cup campaign already over, his first big test will be the Central American Cup of Nations, hosted by Panama in January. The first three qualify for next year's CONCACAF Gold Cup.
'It's a huge job,' said Stempel. 'We used to get beat 6-0 by Costa Rica, now we can beat them.
'The Panamanian people are proud of their flag and I am under pressure to get results from the media and fans. After a bad result, the crowd get at you and throw things at you.'
At last, something Capello can associate with.
Explore more:
Places: Panama