Bowing to the English
Fazeer Mohammed (Express)
Friday, February 8th 2008
Will this be another "Yesterday was yesterday, today is today" moment?
It seems there's only one thing standing in the way of our former colonial masters coming to these shores in June to take on the national team in the showpiece occasion of the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation's centenary celebrations: an apology, or more precisely, a retraction, from no less a person than Jack Warner himself.
Based on a report carried in yesterday's Trinidad Express sports section on the authority of the website ESPN Soccernet, the English Football Association is prepared to entertain a request for their senior national squad to bestow us with the enviable honour of their esteemed presence, once Warner retracts this comment he made last year in the midst of a debate over the abandonment of FIFA's continental rotation policy which would clear the way for England to mount a bid for the 2018 World Cup Finals:
"England has never had any impact on world football...England at no time has the love and support of Europe. For Europe, England is an irritant."
And that was just an extract from all that he said, which had the bigwigs at the EFA spluttering into their cups of Earl Grey (it may be Darjeeling, who knows?) at the brazen effrontery of this nowhere man from a nowhere land to dare to diss a country that prides itself as the spiritual home of the beautiful game. Indeed, the theme of their failed bid for the 2006 Finals, which went to Germany, was something along the lines of "Football Comes Home."
By the way, if anyone is upset at the reference to sweet T&T, home of the steelpan, calypso and limbo, not to mention the greatest show on earth, as a "nowhere land" in terms of the footballing map, just digest this other observation by ESPN Soccernet in relation to the same issue:
"It is understood that playing in (sic) Trinidad would fit in with Fabio Capello's plans of a match against a testing opponent at the end of May followed by a trip abroad where the England manager can spend some time with the players in a low-pressure environment."
I put the (sic) in because, at the risk of sounding like an insecure, small island fanatic, you really get sick and tired of people ignoring the fact that Tobago (Dwight Yorke, remember him?) is an integral part of our twin-island state, not an appendage that can be conveniently disconnected for the sake of literary expediency.
But that's just an aside. What's really revealing is the regard, or lack thereof, that Monsignor Capello appears to have for us puny Third Worlders. Never mind that the game, if it does come off, will be around the same time that Trinidad and Tobago will be taking on either Bermuda or the Cayman Islands in a home-and-away tie that kicks off our actual qualifying campaign to make it to South Africa 2010, and will therefore be expected to display a sharp, competitive edge even if the English are laid back.
To say that either of those two initial qualifying opponents are of no consequence and we shouldn't even have to be up to full steam to blow them away is to adopt the same insultingly condescending attitude that we accuse those good folks up north of harbouring towards us. And let us please keep in mind, shall we, that for all of the glory and celebration of making it to Germany '06, we were in considerable danger of stumbling fatally at the feet of humble St Vincent and the Grenadines before two late goals by Hector Sam and Angus Eve saw us through to the final phase of CONCACAF qualification.
No, what really crawls the blood is the insinuation that England coming here to play Trinidad and Tobago is not really all that far removed from a working holiday for the visitors in a "low-pressure environment," with 90 minutes of football at a reasonable enough pace to excite us star-struck natives before they return to the creature comforts of their luxury accommodation, complete with well-stocked bar and glamorous swarm of all-too-willing barflies.
Would it not be much more significant and symbolic if we were to invite, say, the African champions in a show of solidarity with a part of the world that suffers from the same sort of upper crust exploitation and condescension that has shaped our history, never mind the growing prominence of African footballers in the world's top domestic leagues?
And even if the likes of Ghana, Ivory Coast, Egypt or Cameroon couldn't make it, how about showing that we really have broken the shackles and approach Asian champions Iraq, who overcame the continuing destruction of their country to emerge triumphant last year, to honour us with a game worthy of our centenary celebrations?
But there's never going to be a chance of that, because I can see so many readers twisting up their faces at the prospect of enduring Abu Nobody and Abdul Whoever when they could be pulling on their England replica shirts and gallerying about how they know everything about Steven Gerrard from his tally of international goals to the favourite meal of his second cousin's uncle's former wife.
Almost two hundred years after the end of slavery and more than a hundred years since indentureship ceased, the mental ties that bind are stronger than any chains.
So Jack, let's try it one more time: Yesterday was yesterday and...