As Trinidad and To­ba­go gears up for Fri­day’s 2026 FI­FA World Cup qual­i­fi­er against Cu­raçao, there will be a lot hap­pen­ing off the pitch.

The days lead­ing up to the match will in­clude fan ac­ti­va­tions, meet and greets, mer­chan­dise launch­es, and prize give­aways. These events are vi­tal for build­ing ex­cite­ment, strength­en­ing na­tion­al sup­port, and con­nect­ing fans di­rect­ly with the team.

Yet, be­hind the scenes, there’s a del­i­cate bal­anc­ing act: en­sur­ing play­ers em­brace the en­er­gy of the sup­port­ers with­out los­ing sight of the task at hand — qual­i­fi­ca­tion.

In this sense, foot­ball finds it­self in a dif­fer­ent re­al­i­ty com­pared to crick­et, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL). The CPL has mas­tered the art of fan en­gage­ment as part of its en­ter­tain­ment-first pack­age.

Play­ers are ac­cus­tomed to fre­quent meet and greets, pro­mo­tion­al ap­pear­ances, and me­dia du­ties. They move seam­less­ly be­tween a prac­tice ses­sion in the morn­ing and a fan sign­ing in the evening. It’s baked in­to the cul­ture of the com­pe­ti­tion — a league built as much on spec­ta­cle as on sport.

Foot­ball, es­pe­cial­ly in the con­text of a high-stakes in­ter­na­tion­al qual­i­fi­er, is a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. The men­tal and phys­i­cal de­mands of a World Cup qual­i­fi­er ar­guably out­weigh the rou­tine of a fran­chise crick­et tour­na­ment.

A foot­baller’s 90-plus min­utes are un­for­giv­ing — one lapse of con­cen­tra­tion, one wrong step, can change the tra­jec­to­ry of an en­tire cam­paign. Coach­es and man­agers must there­fore pro­tect play­ers’ fo­cus, lim­it­ing dis­trac­tions while still recog­nis­ing the need to em­brace fans and har­ness the emo­tion­al mo­men­tum that comes with pub­lic back­ing.

This isn’t a new chal­lenge for T&T foot­ball. The cam­paigns of 1989 and 2006 re­main pow­er­ful re­minders of how del­i­cate this bal­ance can be.

In 1989, the "Strike Squad" car­ried the weight of a na­tion on their shoul­ders as the build-up to No­vem­ber 19th be­came as much a na­tion­al move­ment as a foot­ball match. The sup­port was over­whelm­ing, but the im­mense pub­lic at­ten­tion al­so brought pres­sure that had to be man­aged care­ful­ly.

By 2006, lessons were learnt. With Leo Been­hakker at the helm, there was a far greater em­pha­sis on con­trol­ling ac­cess.

When Chris Bir­chall was ap­proached by the BBC to par­tic­i­pate in a video cam­paign, Been­hakker fa­mous­ly drew a line, ask­ing him di­rect­ly at the sta­di­um be­fore a match, “Is this per­son­al or pro­fes­sion­al?”

It was a re­minder that while fan en­gage­ment and me­dia at­ten­tion have their place, the pri­or­i­ty must al­ways be the team’s prepa­ra­tion and per­for­mance.

That phi­los­o­phy still shapes the way the na­tion­al team is man­aged to­day. Morn­ing show ap­pear­ances, for ex­am­ple, are lim­it­ed dur­ing the week of the game to en­sure play­ers are prop­er­ly rest­ed. Me­dia ac­cess at train­ing ses­sions is care­ful­ly timed — win­dows are re­strict­ed to around 15 min­utes, al­low­ing cam­eras to cap­ture footage with­out dis­rupt­ing the rhythm of tac­ti­cal work. Every ac­tiv­i­ty, from meet and greets to mer­chan­dise launch­es, is sched­uled with the play­ers’ men­tal and phys­i­cal fo­cus in mind.

The CPL thrives on ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty. Play­ers dance with the crowd, min­gle freely, and lean in­to the car­ni­val-like at­mos­phere.

Even loss­es are some­times shrugged off in the spir­it of en­ter­tain­ment. But in foot­ball qual­i­fiers, the stakes are ex­is­ten­tial. One de­feat could mean four more years of wait­ing, re­struc­tur­ing, and re­build­ing.

That’s why man­ag­ing en­gage­ments in foot­ball re­quires a sharp­er edge: every hand­shake, every pho­to op­por­tu­ni­ty, every in­ter­view and pub­lic ap­pear­ance has to be care­ful­ly timed and con­trolled.

And yet, foot­ball al­so ben­e­fits from these en­gage­ments in ways crick­et some­times takes for grant­ed. A na­tion­al foot­ball team does not play week af­ter week in a league; it ap­pears in short bursts, with the World Cup the ul­ti­mate prize.

There is on­ly the Na­tions League and Gold Cup out­side of it, with club foot­ball leagues for the play­ers and fans to look for­ward to.

That scarci­ty makes fan con­nec­tions all the more im­por­tant. Sup­port must be cul­ti­vat­ed in the days and hours be­fore the match so that when the play­ers walk in­to the sta­di­um, they feel the weight of a na­tion be­hind them.

The chal­lenge is re­al: bal­ance the car­ni­val en­er­gy with the se­ri­ous­ness of qual­i­fi­ca­tion. Too much fo­cus on fan­fare, and play­ers risk be­ing dis­tract­ed.

Too lit­tle, and the pub­lic may feel dis­con­nect­ed. In this dance, foot­ball has to bor­row lessons from the CPL — that con­nec­tion with fans mat­ters — while al­so carv­ing its own path, one that re­spects the mag­ni­tude of in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball.

The build-up to Cu­raçao re­flects bal­ance: enough in­ter­ac­tion to keep the pub­lic con­nect­ed, but enough pro­tec­tion to keep the play­ers sharp.

The meet and greets are care­ful­ly con­trolled, the me­dia is giv­en ac­cess with­out over­bur­den­ing the squad, and ap­pear­ances are ra­tioned to en­sure the play­ers ar­rive on Fri­day night ready for the task at hand.

In 1989, the na­tion’s pas­sion was both its strength and its weight. In 2006, dis­ci­pline and fo­cus un­der Been­hakker helped T&T cross the line to its first World Cup. In 2025, the chal­lenge re­mains the same: fan­fare must fu­el fo­cus, not dis­tract from it. The peo­ple’s en­er­gy will lift the play­ers, but once the whis­tle blows, it’s about clar­i­ty, ex­e­cu­tion, and seiz­ing the mo­ment.

Fri­day night at Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um will be the cul­mi­na­tion of both: the voic­es of the peo­ple and the dis­ci­pline of the play­ers.

The fan ac­ti­va­tions and meet and greets will have done their part, and now it will be time for the play­ers to do theirs.

Ed­i­tor's Note

Shaun Fuentes is the head of TTFA Com­mu­ni­ca­tions. He was a FI­FA Me­dia Of­fi­cer at the 2010 FI­FA World Cup in South Africa and 2013 FI­FA U-20 World Cup in Turkey. He has trav­eled to 90 coun­tries dur­ing his jour­ney in sport. The views ex­pressed are sole­ly his and not a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of any or­gan­i­sa­tion. shaunfuentes@ya­hoo.com