Surely we can do better than this.
Trinidad and Tobago's senior national footballers achieved their objective in qualifying for next month's Digicel Caribbean Cup Finals in Jamaica, and for that they must be congratulated. However--and I know it's a well-worn cliché--it's not just the winning and losing but how you play the game that matters as well, especially against opponents who have some way to go to meet the standards set by this twin-island state over a prolonged period of time.
Obviously we have to take into account that the latest incarnation of the national team as selected by Francisco Maturana did not feature any of the high-profile foreign-based professionals, and the team that takes on Cuba next Wednesday at the Hasely Crawford Stadium will be a truer reflection of the best that this country has to offer on the international football stage.
Also, we cannot ignore the improvements of our regional neighbours, especially as many of the key players on show for the visiting sides last week have been honing their skills in the T&T Pro League.
But even if you ignore the tendency to build ourselves up much higher than we really are, the fact remains, even without the Germany 2006 experience, that Trinidad and Tobago are the most successful team in Caribbean football. And when you add to that the fact that ours is the only professional league in the region, is it not reasonable to expect that the benefits of such regular competition, combined with what we always claim to be our superior natural talent, would have us way ahead of most of our Caribbean rivals, and that the gap in class and experience would be reflected in the final scoreline?
Of course, this also assumes that the head coach and the rest of the technical team are selecting the best combination of players and, just as importantly, are deploying them in a system that maximises their effectiveness. Results suggest that we are faltering in at least one of those two areas.
Before going any further, it is quite clear that Senor Maturana does not have full control over the selection of national squads, never mind what he says through his interpreter. In fact, the picture has become even more confusing since last Sunday with the Colombian distancing himself from the squad that Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation media officer Shaun Fuentes insisted was the list of players chosen by the head coach for the November 19 (there's always going to be a special resonance about that date, isn't there?) clash with the Cubans.
Additionally, it was being suggested last week that Trinidad and Tobago are on course for a record in the number of players used in a single World Cup qualifying campaign, especially with the prospect of ten more games to come next year.
Those who prefer to be perennially optimistic will take this as an indicator of the wealth of talent we have at our disposal in that players can be plucked from here, there and everywhere to represent us at the highest level. But doesn't ringing the changes more often than those fashion-conscious divas compromise team chemistry?
Unlike the catwalk, where apparently all that matters is looking good, performance counts in football, or any other sport for that matter.
No coach should be so boxed in by his own thinking as to be unwilling to consider other options. Still, it is possible to go too far with experimentation. And when it appears that so much of this chopping and changing is taking place on a whim, and not necessarily the whim of Maturana alone, it is almost impossible for there to be a settled feel to the squad, from which will come the fluidity, cohesion and rhythm expected of a national football team from Trinidad and Tobago.
Or are we expecting too much, in that our footballers are not as good as we believe they are?
That question will take us into all sorts of directions, from delusions of grandeur and the whole "God is a Trini" thing to analysing whether or not we have the structure, system and discipline that allows our available talent, in all walks of life, to achieve anything like its fullest potential.
Yet for all that, you look at our record over several decades--Pan American Games silver medallists in 1967 to World Cup finalists in 2006 with a couple of agonising near-misses and an armful of Caribbean titles in between-and it's impossible not to feel that we should be well past the stage of rallying from a goal down against the Antiguans or salvaging a draw with the Guyanese, or even preparing to celebrate advancing to the last stage of World Cup qualification as if we had made it to South Africa itself.
If this sounds arrogant and elitist, so be it. But we just can't go on under-achieving this way.