from trinidadexpress.com
Sporting success does help to unify a country as was demonstrated by the national football team's victory over Mexico at the Hasely Crawford Stadium on Wednesday. It is true that the victory has not quite carried us to the World Cup Finals but we are at the doorstep of entry into the premier same game competition on the planet.
In its aftermath, who dares deny that Trinbagonians of all races and classes have been given a lift? Indeed, who dares deny that they went to the stadium, in all their rich diversity, to raise its roof in a way that, arguably, they never have before and, in so doing, rallied their team to what, to many of them if they want to be honest, was never an assured victory.
But dressed in their defiant red they went anyway and saw their team come from a goal down to score an impressive 2-1 win against a team that is ranked fifth in the world albeit on the night not as strong as it could possibly have been, some of the better players having been rested since Mexico had already qualified for next year's finals in Germany.
Take nothing away from Trinidad and Tobago, though. After Stern John's missed penalty he, his team and, indeed, 25,000 and more spectators could have become dispirited. But it was John who took it upon himself to make amends not once but twice and not for long did the team falter in the face of fulsome support from the crowd urged to rise above their initial disappointment by the rampaging rhythm sections.
It was as if all the players, on and off the field, were one in their determination to wrest a moment of transcended light from the gloom that persists in the country because of rising crime, ethnic snarling and bewildering poverty that daily mocks the huge revenues that flow into the nation's coffers with every dollar rise in the price of oil and gas.
It was as if, too, all the players were joined in the mission to demonstrate to whoever had the eyes to see and ears to hear that this country's real wealth has to come not from holes in the ground but from tens of thousands of heads and hearts resolved to speak and do in unison for individual satisfaction, to be sure, but, importantly as well, for the collective good of this land we call home.
Only a football match, yes. But to look at Wednesday's night happening merely from this narrow perspective is not to have seen and, more importantly, not to have felt the rise of civic consciousness which, channelled into the necessary spheres of national endeavour, would transform the Trinidad and Tobago of today into a far different and better Trinidad and Tobago tomorrow.
