I don't know when Ven. was ever behind or on par with TT. We hardly ever play them even though we so close to them. As I have said before, even though baseball is their number sport, that does not make them irelevant in football. The Venezuelans have had a proleague for over 50 yrs. Mathew Nuness, Alan Joseph and some other played in Ven. in the early 50's. Until TTFF( 
) )organize to play goodwill games on home and away basis, then we will know if we in front, on par or behind. Right now I feel they may be better. They have improved tremendously. I really eh worried about Ven. I concern about their neighbour, Guy.
We hardly ever played Ven. When Ven sent a team to TT for a goodwill tour in the 71 or 72, it was lower league and college students. They were not expecting TT football to be that competitve. We did not have a pro-league, and the pros were all overseas. Well they got a pretty good shell-lacking from the TT team. They play 3 games and lost by some heavy margins. There was even a fight in one of the games. They invited TT for return games. They then used their pros and beat TT 3-1 and 2-0(check me on the scores). Ven. has had decent teams it just were not good enough to match the other teams in their federation. Plz don't get over your head with Ven. At this moment their team can probly beat us good and proper.
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Although football in Venezuela formally transitioned from amateurism to professionalism in 1957, it would be misleading to characterize the game as a consolidated professional game. There were many challenges and the game in several respects would likely be better characterized as what we would refer to as semi-professional today ... and even that is a negotiable statement.
I would add that the center of this "professional" game resided in expatriate communities such as the Portuguese, the Italians and the Spanish (Basques, Catalans, Galicians etc. segregated their representation and financing of the game along community lines). These were the teams that were dominant. They were not comprised primarily of local players. Local or criollo teams struggled during this period. They didn't have the bank and they didn't have the players.
Based on their connection with their home communities in Spain, expat financiers were at times able to arrange games with clubs from Spain ... and from neighboring countries like Argentina ... but again we should not idealize or interpret this to mean that soccer in Venezuela had achieved mythical proportion. What can be said fairly is that a platform for progressing the game was established based on the European origin of the immigrants. However, it took a significant period for the game to spread and grow across the country beyond the bastions tied to these communities. For almost the first 10 years, the league was all Caracas.
Another factor disruptive of the game's development - despite the artifice of a professional league - was several manifestations of mismanagement at the club level. These are well-documented in Venezuelan football. And, some community teams, while featuring similarly competent players, did not enter the professional set-up for some time (in some cases the denominator would be years/decades). In the midst of all of this, FIFA sanctioned the federation due to internal problems rooted in a power struggle (1973).
Another barometer would be club infrastructure ... youth teams, ownership of stadium and facilities etc. Caracas FC (viewed as well-organized, celebrated its 22 year of re-organization last week ... but even with that ... that occurred due to the 11th hour intervention of a sports fan who feared that the club's financial problems would leave Caracas without representation in the pro league (merely 5 years after it went pro ... a teething problem not unlike our experience with the pro League). And their actual home facility seats less than 4,000.
On this thread, some have magnified the historical credentials of Venezuelan football. The better view is to regard the period from the late 90s onwards as the beginning of viability in Venezuela.
Prior to that they routinely had many problems ... just like us ... teams withdrawing during the season and other ailments (bankruptcy, relocation of teams that affected logistics etc.).
I don't discount history ... but it is not the conquests of old that account for where they are today. It is their odyssey of growing pains in domestic football (not unlike us). It is the administrative reform of the game (league, national teams) in contemporary times that has sparked the revolution. And dais my point.
They never have been light years ahead of us.
