The lat­est round of Con­ca­caf Na­tions League foot­ball has of­fered an­oth­er re­minder that the gap across the re­gion is nar­row­ing and, more im­por­tant­ly, that Caribbean teams are no longer pre­pared to play sup­port­ing roles.

There was a time when a re­sult in­volv­ing one of the tra­di­tion­al pow­ers against a small­er Caribbean na­tion could al­most be pre­dict­ed be­fore kick-off. That is no longer the case. The mar­gins are small­er now. Teams are trav­el­ling bet­ter, prepar­ing bet­ter, pro­duc­ing more pro­fes­sion­als and show­ing more be­lief. And when the pres­sure comes, more of them are be­gin­ning to find ways to re­spond.

That was ev­i­dent across League A.

Ja­maica had to dig deep at home against Guatemala af­ter falling be­hind al­most im­me­di­ate­ly. They re­cov­ered, sur­ren­dered an ad­van­tage lat­er in the con­test, and still found a win­ner deep in­to stop­page time through Re­nal­do Cephas for a 3-2 vic­to­ry.

Suri­name pro­duced an­oth­er ma­jor state­ment away from home in Hon­duras. They took the lead, found them­selves 2-1 down in­side the open­ing 25 min­utes, but stayed in the game and even­tu­al­ly walked away from Tegu­ci­gal­pa with a 3-2 vic­to­ry.

El Sal­vador were more com­fort­able in their 3-1 win over Mar­tinique, but col­lec­tive­ly the match­es told a sim­i­lar sto­ry. There are few­er easy nights in this com­pe­ti­tion.

That is es­pe­cial­ly true in the Caribbean.

Cu­raçao are per­haps the clear­est ex­am­ple of where am­bi­tion, struc­ture and con­fi­dence can take a foot­ball na­tion. Com­ing off the achieve­ment of qual­i­fy­ing for the World Cup, they are now car­ry­ing them­selves like a team that be­lieves it be­longs among the bet­ter sides in the re­gion. That con­fi­dence mat­ters.

Qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the World Cup should not be viewed on­ly as the com­ple­tion of a jour­ney. In some ways, it should be the be­gin­ning of a new stan­dard. Once you have reached that lev­el, the chal­lenge be­comes stay­ing there.

Haiti are an­oth­er ex­am­ple.

Their re­cent vic­to­ry over our own Trinidad and To­ba­go at Sabi­na Park in Ja­maica was not achieved com­fort­ably. T&T fought back, made the game dif­fi­cult and had mo­ments when they ap­peared ca­pa­ble of tak­ing some­thing from it. Haiti, how­ev­er, found a way. That is of­ten what sep­a­rates teams at this lev­el.

It is not al­ways about play­ing a nice game for 90 min­utes. Some­times it is about sur­viv­ing dif­fi­cult pe­ri­ods, ab­sorb­ing that pres­sure and hav­ing enough qual­i­ty and be­lief to pro­duce some­thing when the op­por­tu­ni­ty comes.

For T&T, the chal­lenge is to con­tin­ue grow­ing in­to that space as well.

There is qual­i­ty in this squad and there are play­ers ca­pa­ble of in­flu­enc­ing match­es at a high lev­el. Cap­tain Levi Gar­cia re­mains one of the clear­est ex­am­ples. His pace, move­ment, strength and abil­i­ty to pro­duce some­thing from dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions give T&T a gen­uine at­tack­ing weapon. When he is able to get in­to dan­ger­ous ar­eas and im­pose him­self, the team im­me­di­ate­ly car­ries a dif­fer­ent threat.

That kind of in­di­vid­ual prowess can be de­ci­sive, but in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball al­so de­mands col­lec­tive re­silience.

The cur­rent cam­paign has al­ready brought its share of ad­ver­si­ty. Trav­el across the re­gion is not al­ways straight­for­ward. Play­ers are ar­riv­ing from dif­fer­ent leagues, dif­fer­ent time zones and dif­fer­ent stages of their club sea­sons. In­juries can change plans overnight.

We have al­ready seen that re­al­i­ty first-hand.

Tyrese Spicer, one of the young play­ers who has brought en­er­gy, di­rect­ness and fear­less­ness to the na­tion­al team set­up, suf­fered an in­jury while giv­ing every­thing for his coun­try. Those mo­ments are dif­fi­cult be­cause every play­er wants to be on the field con­tribut­ing, es­pe­cial­ly in match­es of this im­por­tance. But they are al­so part of in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball.

Squads have to ab­sorb those blows, sup­port the play­er and keep mov­ing. That is where the depth of a pro­gramme is test­ed. It is not about de­mand­ing per­fec­tion or pre­tend­ing the cir­cum­stances are easy. It is about find­ing so­lu­tions to­geth­er.

Some play­ers are un­avail­able. There are play­ers join­ing camps lat­er than planned. There are ad­just­ments coach­es some­times have to make with very lit­tle prepa­ra­tion time. That is sim­ply the na­ture of the in­ter­na­tion­al game. The bet­ter teams learn to man­age those mo­ments. They find an­oth­er play­er. They tweak the shape. They lean on ex­pe­ri­ence.

They trust the next man. And most im­por­tant­ly, they keep be­liev­ing that the re­sult is still there to be tak­en. That is where Trinidad and To­ba­go has an op­por­tu­ni­ty in this Na­tions League cam­paign.

There is tal­ent, ex­pe­ri­ence and a clear sense of what rep­re­sent­ing the coun­try means with­in the group. There are play­ers com­pet­ing at good lev­els abroad, along­side a do­mes­tic group that con­tin­ues to push for op­por­tu­ni­ties. The aim is to keep bring­ing those pieces to­geth­er.

The Na­tions League for­mat de­mands ur­gency be­cause every point car­ries weight and every game can change the pic­ture quick­ly.

The Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Haiti and Cu­raçao have al­ready demon­strat­ed their in­tent in Group A. No­body is stand­ing still. That is the re­al­i­ty of where Caribbean foot­ball now stands. The re­gion is mov­ing.

More play­ers are be­ing de­vel­oped abroad. More fed­er­a­tions are in­vest­ing in prepa­ra­tion. More na­tion­al teams are com­pet­ing with gen­uine be­lief in­stead of sim­ply hop­ing to sur­vive.

That is healthy for Con­ca­caf foot­ball.

It al­so means every cam­paign be­comes a test of how quick­ly a team can adapt, re­cov­er and re­spond.

For us in T&T, there is no need to look at what oth­ers are do­ing with en­vy. We have been there be­fore. We know what it is to get to a World Cup and what it is to al­most get there as well. There are per­sons in the fra­ter­ni­ty who bring val­ue.

The task is sim­ply to re­main part of the con­ver­sa­tion. The his­to­ry of our foot­ball still car­ries weight, but what mat­ters most now is what this gen­er­a­tion is able to build in the present.

There is enough qual­i­ty in the group to com­pete. There is enough ex­pe­ri­ence to un­der­stand the stakes. And there is enough hunger among play­ers such as Gar­cia, Spicer and oth­ers to know that every op­por­tu­ni­ty in the red, white and black shirt mat­ters.

That may be the biggest les­son from this Na­tions League so far. The Caribbean is step­ping up. The games are tighter and the come­backs are more dra­mat­ic.

And for T&T, the jour­ney is about con­tin­u­ing to grow, stay­ing to­geth­er through the dif­fi­cult mo­ments and find­ing ways to keep our­selves in that group of teams push­ing the re­gion for­ward.

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 trav­elled 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