Rough­ly three months ago, my eyes im­me­di­ate­ly lit up when I dis­cov­ered that Capel­li Sport had found a pres­ence at the 2026 FI­FA World Cup through its part­ner­ship with Cape Verde.

To many, it may have seemed like just an­oth­er com­mer­cial an­nounce­ment. But hav­ing worked close­ly with the brand since it be­came the Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion’s of­fi­cial kit part­ner, first in 2019 and then again in 2023, I un­der­stood the sig­nif­i­cance of that mo­ment.

For years, Capel­li had been knock­ing on the door of foot­ball’s biggest stage, hop­ing to have a pres­ence among the best.

They came close be­fore, on­ly to see Trinidad and To­ba­go’s hopes of reach­ing the Co­pa Améri­ca end with a play­off de­feat to Cana­da.

<This time, they had fi­nal­ly bro­ken through>

Iron­i­cal­ly, the re­ac­tion re­mind­ed me of con­ver­sa­tions when Capel­li first ar­rived in T&T. One of the most com­mon ques­tions was, “Who is Capel­li?" Where all do you find that brand from? It wasn’t even meant as crit­i­cism on­ly. It was gen­uine cu­rios­i­ty be­cause the brand was large­ly un­known here. The Amer­i­can-based Capel­li Sport was found­ed in 2011 by Lebanon-born and New York–based en­tre­pre­neur George Al­tirs.

Fast for­ward to this World Cup, and I found my­self hear­ing al­most the ex­act same thing again.

When I men­tioned to a few lo­cal col­leagues that Capel­li would be rep­re­sent­ed at the World Cup through Cape Verde, the im­me­di­ate re­sponse was, “Who? Cape Verde?” That summed it up per­fect­ly. To many lo­cal foot­ball fol­low­ers, the African na­tion was just as un­fa­mil­iar as Capel­li once was.

Fun­ny enough, af­ter this World Cup, very few peo­ple will be ask­ing ei­ther ques­tion again.

<The truth is, this World Cup has ed­u­cat­ed plen­ty of us.

Let’s be hon­est. Lo­cal peo­ple tend to feel they know world foot­ball in­side out. We know Brazil, Ar­genti­na, France, Eng­land, Spain, Ger­many, Por­tu­gal and the big names we see every week­end. But men­tion a coun­try out­side of that usu­al cir­cle and sud­den­ly the re­spect dis­ap­pears.

Two months ago, if you men­tioned Cape Verde in a foot­ball con­ver­sa­tion around T&T, the re­sponse from many would have been, “If we can't beat Cape Verde, then we should stop play­ing foot­ball.” That was gen­uine­ly the per­cep­tion.

It wasn’t very dif­fer­ent with Cu­raçao ei­ther. Many dis­missed them as a coun­try good for shop­ping and felt T&T had every right to put two or three goals past them.

<Foot­ball does not work like that any­more.

The glob­al game has changed. Coun­tries once con­sid­ered min­nows are in­vest­ing, de­vel­op­ing play­ers across Eu­rope and oth­er re­spectable leagues, im­prov­ing their struc­tures and qui­et­ly clos­ing the gap. By the time the rest of us no­tice, they have al­ready moved ahead.

Now af­ter watch­ing Cape Verde go toe-to-toe with some of the world’s best, in­clud­ing the reign­ing champs, and earn the re­spect of mil­lions, every­one sud­den­ly knows who they are. Every­one can tell you about their play­ers, their style, their dis­ci­pline and how im­pres­sive they have been. Hard­ly any­one could tell you that they lost to Cameroon 4-1 in the qual­i­fiers be­fore turn­ing out a 1-0 win last Sep­tem­ber along with pos­i­tive re­sults against Libya, An­go­la, Mau­ri­tius and Eswa­ti­ni on their road to qual­i­fi­ca­tion.

That is one of the great­est things about a World Cup. It does not just crown a cham­pi­on. It ed­u­cates foot­ball fans. It chal­lenges past as­sump­tions and re­minds us that the foot­ball world ex­tends far be­yond the tra­di­tion­al pow­ers we watch on tele­vi­sion every week­end.

Cape Verde have earned world­wide ad­mi­ra­tion with their per­for­mances, while Capel­li Sport has now en­joyed price­less ex­po­sure on foot­ball’s biggest stage. There is al­so a qui­et ben­e­fit for T&T. Every time our na­tion­al teams now trav­el abroad wear­ing Capel­li, more peo­ple recog­nise the lo­go on our shirts. Now the test is to see us com­bine that recog­ni­tion with re­sults.

What was once an un­fa­mil­iar badge is now as­so­ci­at­ed with a World Cup na­tion and a brand that has proven it be­longs on foot­ball’s biggest stage.

It al­so re­mind­ed me of some­thing I have al­ways tried to do when­ev­er I at­tend a World Cup.

This is my sixth, dat­ing back to Ger­many in 2006. I worked at two World Cups as a FI­FA me­dia of­fi­cer, served as Trinidad and To­ba­go’s press of­fi­cer at our his­toric de­but in Ger­many and was for­tu­nate enough to at­tend the se­mi-fi­nals and fi­nals in both Rus­sia and Qatar.

Am I proud of that? Of course I am. I know how for­tu­nate I have been to ex­pe­ri­ence foot­ball at that lev­el.

But every World Cup, I find my­self look­ing for more than just the match­es. I al­ways ask my­self, 'What else can I take from it? 'Who can I meet? What can I bring back home? Sha­ka His­lop af­ford­ed me the chance to ex­pe­ri­ence live pro­duc­tion from the ES­PN stu­dios in Do­ha dur­ing the fi­nal week at the 2022 World Cup, where I got to en­gage Ar­gen­tine great Mario Kem­pes in a con­ver­sa­tion.

So when I knew Brazil had cho­sen the Red Bull New York Per­for­mance Cen­tre as their base, I im­me­di­ate­ly saw an op­por­tu­ni­ty.

For­mer Trinidad and To­ba­go in­ter­na­tion­al Leslie Fitz­patrick is the tech­ni­cal di­rec­tor at New York Red Bulls.

For­mer Unit­ed States cap­tain Michael Bradley, some­one whose path crossed ours many times dur­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go ver­sus USA match­es over the years, is now the club’s head coach.

What fol­lowed were two fas­ci­nat­ing days at one of the most im­pres­sive foot­ball en­vi­ron­ments I have vis­it­ed. And I've been to many over two decades. There were dis­cus­sions with Fitz­patrick, Bradley, mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­part­ment and oth­er club of­fi­cials, along with the op­por­tu­ni­ty to watch Brazil train up close the morn­ing af­ter their vic­to­ry over Japan. France al­so used Red Bull’s sec­ond train­ing fa­cil­i­ty dur­ing the same week.

Red Bull New York have em­braced the mod­ern game in every sense. You quick­ly re­alise they are op­er­at­ing at an­oth­er lev­el. You can see the new trends in how they com­mu­ni­cate, how they build a foot­ball en­vi­ron­ment and how they con­nect the tech­ni­cal side with the busi­ness and me­dia side.

What stood for me, though, was see­ing Fitz­patrick in his el­e­ment. He is re­spect­ed. Peo­ple val­ue his opin­ion. He has earned his place. And as a Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­al, there was a gen­uine sense of pride in watch­ing one of our own op­er­at­ing con­fi­dent­ly in those cir­cles.

Just as im­por­tant­ly, they wel­comed me with open arms. That, to me, is what a World Cup should al­so be about. Not just the 90 min­utes watch­ing the game on the field, but al­so the re­la­tion­ships, the con­ver­sa­tions, the ideas and the op­por­tu­ni­ties that can even­tu­al­ly ben­e­fit foot­ball back home.

Might I add that maybe the next time an emerg­ing foot­ball na­tion ap­pears on T&T’s fix­ture list, we will be a lit­tle slow­er to dis­miss them and a lit­tle quick­er to ap­pre­ci­ate just how much the glob­al game has evolved.

May we al­so ap­pre­ci­ate that the same Cu­ra­cao that got a point with Ecuador is the same side that nar­row­ly es­caped de­feat against us in Port of Spain and was al­so re­lieved to take a point in the 1-1 draw in Willem­stad.

Some­times, foot­ball has a fun­ny way of chang­ing per­cep­tions. All it takes is one tour­na­ment and some­times a hand­ful of favourable per­for­mances and re­sults.

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 over 90 coun­tries dur­ing his jour­ney in sport. “Pro Look” is his week­ly col­umn on foot­ball, sport, cul­ture and the hu­man side of the game. The views ex­pressed are sole­ly his and not a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of any or­gan­i­sa­tion. shaunfuentes@ya­hoo.com