WELL, the World Cup qualifying campaign is over!
Well, just about.
So, what now? I suggest four things: (1) thoroughly review our effort; (2) analyse it; (3) use it to shape policy for the next qualifying campaign; and (4) start today.
That, simple as it is, would take us a step further next time and, if maintained, would make us a guaranteed force in World Cup qualifying forever (notwithstanding the continued growth of other Caribbean countries and the stepping up of Canada and Central American bridesmaids).
We could do a million other things, for instance blame the players.
Turn rumour and innuendo into fact re “they like too much party”, they are “prima donnas”, they put “self before country”, this one wanted a separate room, that one demanded “a cellphone and car” …
We could blame the coach -- “nobody ever keep he for more than a year”, “how he could leave out Glenn”, “he’s just a puppet; he ent ha’ no real say”, “he doh know the Trinidad culture, how he could coach a Trinidad team”?
We could blame the administrator supreme.
Actually, we won’t do that.
In spite of all his frailties, we laud him for a thing like putting “17 million dollars” into the campaign, without as much as superficially scrutinising what he is getting out of it from ticket print and sales to travel agency, to merchandising, to advertising billboards, to accommodation, to TV rights, etc., etc., etc.
And without asking for clarification on how TSTT, KFC and government’s contributions are being utilised and in which areas, as against his.
But we laud him like blind dolts; thanks, too, to the euphoric frenzy created by the likes of chief spin doctor Peter O’Connor, who leans on our stupidity with meretricious appeals to our patriotism and sense of nation.
But, as my good friend Eddy Odingi, the late Edwin Taylor, would say to change the topic, sometimes when nearing boiling point, “However! ...”
As I was saying before, whatever the composition of the national team from campaign to campaign, the body of administrators remains the same, as does the quality of administration.
With it, comes the same result.
And we could blame any variety of events surrounding our matches, like teams turning on the sprinkler on us during training, bad refereeing decisions, poor luck, no warm-up matches, not enough time together because of club commitment, injury, being fooled by reports of USA squabbling for salary and Mexico weakened by suspension, not acclimatising to high-altitude countries, tiredness after a long flight.
Hand in hand with all the things and people we could blame, would come the resident experts and their myriad of hindsight opinion.
They will pontificate on tactics and techniques, on movement and angles, on visionary and intellectual concepts.
In an inspired moment, they would be just about the best and brightest sparks ever to grace the precincts of FIFA.
But would that bring us closer to qualifying for the 2010 World Cup finals?
Well, we had loads of it after the 1989, 1992, 1996 and 2001 qualifying campaigns.
It didn’t take us into (or directly into) the 1994, 1998, 2002 or 2006 finals.
My guess is it would put us exactly where we are now and have always been.
That is, of course, unless data becomes of such extreme importance to our preparation for each campaign that we consider their “expert” criticisms while in the process of taking the four simplest of approaches as mentioned above -- namely, (1) thoroughly reviewing our effort; (2) analysing it; (3) using it to shape policy for the next qualifying campaign; and (4) starting today.
First of all, we must look, thoroughly, at how we managed the campaign dating back not to the introduction of Leo Beenhakker, preparation for the first match or to the recall of Bertille St. Clair, but from the end of the last campaign. What did we take from that campaign in 2002 as our best experiences to be reapplied to our advantage this time around, or our worse occurrences as the pitfalls to avoid?
By advantage, I mean things mostly tactical and technical in relation to actual play and the gathering of information on both TnT and its opponents.
Things like analyses on individual players in terms of who prefers which foot, which turn, which run and how many touches to either control the ball or lay it off, where and to whom.
Things like when did we score or were scored upon by whom and how.
Things like our preparation from each match in the weeks and days before the match both physically and in terms of intelligence gathering on the opposition and on our foreign-based players.
The pitfalls include all these things related to team preparation and play, as well as other things administrative.
It may also help to study the fixture and review how it may or may not have helped, so that we can determine from the start what impact a competition draw could have on us.
While at it, we could look at the opponents’ schedule to see where they can benefit and where they might be most vulnerable.
There are thousands of other things people in the know could come up with but the important thing is the approach: that is, study and analysis of every detail.
Once we (1) review and study our past efforts and (2) analyse them, we would come to the toughest aspect of any qualifying campaign; that is, (3) using it to shape policy.
This will entail reshaping ourselves to do things differently in spite of our own culture.
But, heck, our culture is changing rapidly anyway, thanks to our openness to American culture through our own lack of self worth (we talk about going “up” to America and “down” to Trinidad, not only in terms of geography) and thanks to America’s willingness to feed us their way of life, among other brainwash, via cable.
So, since our culture is not so much our own anyway, it shouldn’t be too hard to accept a total change of culture, in terms of our approach to the type of success produced by our own hands -- like a country willing to feed and clothe itself.
That rather than forging success from the mundane skill of buying foreign goods, marking up and selling to a public already primed up by BET, MTV, VH1 and the myriad of programmes and advertisements that draw us to how (on the high end) the “rich and famous” live or (from the lowest end that glorifies banditry) how you don’t have to do the right thing to “bling”, “pimp your ride” or have a good “crib”.
To get to the World Cup not just by chance but by methodology, we must change our approach to success, develop a better culture and fill the development gaps in our football.
That is, the lack of emphasis on the Primary School level and (after players leave secondary schools’ football) the tertiary age level before entry into the Pro League and national team.
And we need to start today, not on 2010 alone but on the 2014 campaign as well.
That’s my view.