Ex­pe­ri­ence teach­es you many things in sport. One of them is that you do not have to pre­tend that every­thing is fine when it isn’t.

We some­times con­fuse strength with the abil­i­ty to show no emo­tion. I have nev­er sub­scribed to that. Sport is emo­tion­al. It gives you some of the great­est highs you will ex­pe­ri­ence and, some­times with­in the same week, can knock you flat.

Look at the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers dur­ing this Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) cam­paign. When things are not go­ing well, there is noth­ing wrong with play­ers, coach­es or sup­port­ers show­ing dis­ap­point­ment. There is noth­ing wrong with hold­ing your hands up and ad­mit­ting that a per­for­mance was not good enough. That is not weak­ness.

Watch the very best ath­letes and coach­es in the world. The con­sis­tent­ly suc­cess­ful ones hurt when they lose. You see it on their faces. Some cry. Some take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty pub­licly. Some sim­ply ad­mit, “We were not good enough to­day.” Then they go back to work.

Foot­ball has taught me that over more than two decades. I have been for­tu­nate to ex­pe­ri­ence World Cups, ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al match­es and some won­der­ful mo­ments with Trinidad and To­ba­go foot­ball. I have al­so been there for painful de­feats, failed cam­paigns, crit­i­cism and pe­ri­ods when very lit­tle seemed to go right.

All of it builds you. Ex­pe­ri­ence does not mean you be­come emo­tion­less. It means you learn how to han­dle the emo­tion, un­der­stand the en­vi­ron­ment and know what your re­spon­si­bil­i­ties are with­in it. That last part is im­por­tant.

In my own po­si­tion, I un­der­stand clear­ly the pa­ra­me­ters with­in which I op­er­ate. Com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­als can ad­vise, rec­om­mend, raise con­cerns and help shape how an or­gan­i­sa­tion presents it­self. But the peo­ple elect­ed or ap­point­ed to lead are ul­ti­mate­ly the ones who au­tho­rise cer­tain ac­tions and make the fi­nal de­ci­sions.

Un­der­stand­ing that dis­tinc­tion is part of pro­fes­sion­al­ism.

​It is al­so why I found Kei­th Look Loy’s re­cent com­ments about my Pro Look col­umn some­what cu­ri­ous.

​Or­di­nar­i­ly, I would not both­er re­spond­ing. Kei­th and I have both been around Trinidad and To­ba­go foot­ball long enough, and his his­to­ry in the lo­cal game, in­clud­ing his share of con­tro­ver­sy and strong pub­lic ex­changes, is well doc­u­ment­ed. Out of re­spect, I have gen­er­al­ly cho­sen not to en­gage. But when my pro­fes­sion­al­ism is ques­tioned, con­text be­comes nec­es­sary.

​Kei­th has no au­thor­i­ty to de­fine what a mod­ern foot­ball com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­al is per­mit­ted to un­der­stand, dis­cuss, or write about.

The po­si­tion has evolved con­sid­er­ably from the nar­row in­ter­pre­ta­tion he has at­tempt­ed to present. A com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­al is cer­tain­ly re­spon­si­ble for of­fi­cial mes­sag­ing, but that does not some­how re­move his abil­i­ty to un­der­stand, dis­cuss or write in­tel­li­gent­ly about foot­ball, par­tic­u­lar­ly when do­ing so sep­a­rate­ly in an es­tab­lished news­pa­per col­umn.

More im­por­tant­ly, what ex­act­ly was the great “spec­u­la­tion” that caused such alarm?

I wrote that with T&T fac­ing four in­ter­na­tion­al match­es in a very short pe­ri­od, I did not ex­pect Derek King to se­lect a squad based sole­ly on his pre­ferred start­ing XI.

Play­ing that many games has not been the case since 2001, when T&T played two friend­lies and two World Cup qual­i­fiers back to back. I sug­gest­ed that the coach would have to con­sid­er who could play mul­ti­ple match­es, where ad­di­tion­al cov­er was re­quired, which play­ers of­fered flex­i­bil­i­ty and how the squad could be ro­tat­ed with­out a sig­nif­i­cant drop in qual­i­ty.

That is not priv­i­leged in­for­ma­tion. It is foot­ball log­ic.

I did not se­lect the squad. I did not re­veal the coach’s think­ing. I did not crit­i­cise a play­er or ques­tion any­one’s fit­ness. Any coach fac­ing four com­pet­i­tive in­ter­na­tion­als in a com­pressed win­dow must con­sid­er work­load, re­cov­ery, po­si­tion­al cov­er and squad depth. To por­tray such an ob­ser­va­tion as some­how re­veal­ing the coach’s pri­vate think­ing is quite a stretch.

There is some irony here be­cause, while serv­ing as a se­nior tech­ni­cal fig­ure with­in the fed­er­a­tion, Kei­th him­self pub­licly as­sessed na­tion­al team mat­ters. In fact, fol­low­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s 1-0 vic­to­ry over El Sal­vador in 2009, while serv­ing as Tech­ni­cal Ad­vis­er, he open­ly com­ment­ed on the per­for­mance of Rus­sell Lat­apy’s team. In an in­ter­view with CNC3, he went as far as stat­ing that Cor­nell Glen had been T&T’s best for­ward for the pre­vi­ous two years.

One can on­ly imag­ine how the oth­er for­wards in that na­tion­al squad, and in­deed the head coach him­self, would have viewed such a pub­lic de­c­la­ra­tion com­ing from some­one em­ployed in a se­nior tech­ni­cal po­si­tion with­in the fed­er­a­tion. He al­so pub­licly ques­tioned the team’s fit­ness lev­els and sin­gled out Dwight Yorke as look­ing out of sorts.

​Us­ing Kei­th’s own present-day ar­gu­ment, why were those as­sess­ments not con­fined to an in­ter­nal tech­ni­cal dis­cus­sion? Sure­ly ques­tions about in­di­vid­ual play­ers, fit­ness lev­els and a coach’s team per­for­mance fall con­sid­er­ably clos­er to the tech­ni­cal de­part­ment’s ac­tu­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties than my ob­ser­va­tion that a coach fac­ing four match­es in a com­pressed pe­ri­od would need squad depth and ro­ta­tion.

Would we ex­pect a se­nior tech­ni­cal of­fi­cial in the Eng­lish FA or Span­ish fed­er­a­tion to pub­licly rank one in­ter­na­tion­al for­ward above his team­mates or sin­gle out in­di­vid­ual play­ers for crit­i­cism?

Per­haps Kei­th be­lieved then that speak­ing frankly was part of his role. Fair enough. But it makes to­day’s at­tempt to draw rigid bound­aries around what some­one else can say rather con­ve­nient.

My col­umn, mean­while, was foot­ball analy­sis. Noth­ing more.

Kei­th was al­so part of the foot­ball lead­er­ship around pre­vi­ous na­tion­al coach­ing ap­point­ments which co­in­cid­ed with dis­ap­point­ing World Cup qual­i­fy­ing cam­paigns. He was in­volved in the tech­ni­cal struc­tures around the 2014 cam­paign when we were em­bar­rass­ing­ly elim­i­nat­ed by Guyana in 2011 un­der Ger­man Ot­to Pfis­ter, and not to for­get his role in the hir­ing of a coach who led the team dur­ing the failed 2022 World Cup qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign.

That con­text mat­ters when some­one now po­si­tions him­self as the au­thor­i­ty on what con­sti­tutes prop­er pro­fes­sion­al con­duct around a na­tion­al team.

There is fur­ther irony in the fact that Kei­th him­self felt it ap­pro­pri­ate to speak pub­licly about Lat­apy’s per­for­mance dur­ing his time as na­tion­al coach in 2009-10 while Kei­th was serv­ing in a tech­ni­cal ad­vi­so­ry ca­pac­i­ty. Again, that was his right. But one can­not ex­er­cise that free­dom when oc­cu­py­ing an in­flu­en­tial fed­er­a­tion role and then lat­er sug­gest that an­oth­er foot­ball pro­fes­sion­al should ef­fec­tive­ly be silent be­cause of the po­si­tion he holds.

So I find the sud­den con­cern about pro­fes­sion­al bound­aries rather se­lec­tive.

Kei­th al­so wrote that he “can­not imag­ine King would be hap­py.” Un­less Derek King told him that, then iron­i­cal­ly that is ac­tu­al spec­u­la­tion about the coach’s thoughts, the very thing I am sup­pos­ed­ly be­ing chas­tised for do­ing.

And com­par­ing a foot­ball squad to a Prime Min­is­ter se­lect­ing a Cab­i­net may make for dra­mat­ic writ­ing, but it does very lit­tle to strength­en the foot­ball ar­gu­ment.

My Pro Look col­umn was ex­act­ly what it has al­ways been, foot­ball analy­sis and dis­cus­sion. I dis­cussed the very ob­vi­ous chal­lenges con­fronting any na­tion­al coach prepar­ing a squad to play four match­es in such a short pe­ri­od.

There is an­oth­er point worth mak­ing.

The mod­ern role of a foot­ball com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­al is not some nar­row func­tion where an in­di­vid­ual sim­ply dis­trib­utes press re­leas­es and re­peats ap­proved sen­tences. At the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el, the role re­quires an un­der­stand­ing of the game, the com­pe­ti­tion en­vi­ron­ment, play­er man­age­ment, me­dia op­er­a­tions, tour­na­ment struc­tures and the broad­er foot­ball land­scape. That un­der­stand­ing is pre­cise­ly what al­lows some­one to com­mu­ni­cate the game prop­er­ly.

It is al­so why peo­ple work­ing in these roles across FI­FA, Con­ca­caf and ma­jor fed­er­a­tions rou­tine­ly have ex­ten­sive foot­ball knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence be­yond sim­ply is­su­ing state­ments.

Of course, I al­so recog­nise that some of the events in­volv­ing T&T foot­ball over the past week, as re­port­ed in the me­dia, have not cre­at­ed the ide­al cli­mate for mak­ing these points. That con­text can­not sim­ply be ig­nored.

But tim­ing does not change my view. I stand by what I wrote, and by the broad­er point that in­formed foot­ball analy­sis, pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ence and open dis­cus­sion should not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly be treat­ed as dis­loy­al­ty or a breach of pro­fes­sion­al bound­aries.

Kei­th is en­tire­ly en­ti­tled to dis­agree with what I write. De­bate is part of foot­ball and dis­agree­ment is healthy.

What I will not ac­cept with­out re­sponse is an at­tempt to con­vert a per­fect­ly rea­son­able foot­ball ob­ser­va­tion in­to a ques­tion about my pro­fes­sion­al­ism or to use my name con­ve­nient­ly to sup­port a wider nar­ra­tive about “dys­func­tion” with­in the TTFA.

And this brings me back to ex­pe­ri­ence and why in­sti­tu­tions should val­ue it rather than fear it. One of the most en­cour­ag­ing de­vel­op­ments this week was the four-year Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing be­tween the TTFA and the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies. It links foot­ball with ed­u­ca­tion, re­search, sport sci­ence, gov­er­nance, safe­guard­ing, pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment and prac­ti­cal op­por­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents. Im­por­tant­ly, it al­so in­cor­po­rates the Aza­ad Mo­hammed-Khan Schol­ar­ship con­nect­ed to the UWI-FI­FA/CIES Post­grad­u­ate Diplo­ma in Sports Man­age­ment.

For me, there is a per­son­al sense of con­ti­nu­ity.

I was there in Sep­tem­ber 2008 when FI­FA and UWI Vice-Chan­cel­lor Pro­fes­sor E. Nigel Har­ris signed the agree­ment that helped lay the foun­da­tion for the UWI/FI­FA/CIES sport-man­age­ment pro­gramme. It came dur­ing the pe­ri­od of cel­e­bra­tions mark­ing 100 years of or­gan­ised foot­ball ad­min­is­tra­tion in T&T.

Eigh­teen years lat­er, see­ing TTFA and UWI deep­en that re­la­tion­ship mat­ters. Be­cause foot­ball de­vel­op­ment can­not on­ly mean pro­duc­ing bet­ter play­ers. We need bet­ter coach­es, ad­min­is­tra­tors, com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­als, an­a­lysts, sport sci­en­tists, match man­agers and de­ci­sion-mak­ers. We need young peo­ple who un­der­stand both the class­room and the dress­ing room, the text­book and the match­day re­al­i­ty.

That is where ex­pe­ri­ence and ed­u­ca­tion meet. None of us gets every­thing right. Or­gan­i­sa­tions do not ei­ther. The im­por­tant thing is be­ing pre­pared to learn, to ac­knowl­edge when some­thing has not worked and to keep im­prov­ing.

That ap­plies to a crick­et team los­ing match­es, a foot­ball team go­ing through a dif­fi­cult cam­paign, an ad­min­is­tra­tor mak­ing de­ci­sions or some­one like me writ­ing an opin­ion col­umn af­ter more than two decades in­side the game.

You can show dis­ap­point­ment. You can dis­agree. You can even get things wrong. What mat­ters is whether you have learned enough from the jour­ney to come back bet­ter.

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