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Thursday, May 29, 2025

Football, friendship and the power of shared experience

by

Shaun Fuentes
18 days ago
20250511

This past week, I had the ho­n­our of rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean as the lone non-UE­FA par­tic­i­pant se­lect­ed for the UE­FA Strate­gic Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­pact Course, held at UE­FA head­quar­ters in Ny­on, Switzer­land.

Every­one else in the room was a part of the UE­FA ecosys­tem—sea­soned pro­fes­sion­als rep­re­sent­ing the foot­balling elite of Eu­rope and be­yond. Yet, de­spite our dif­fer­ing ori­gins, what un­fold­ed over those five days was a pow­er­ful re­minder of how foot­ball tran­scends bor­ders, breaks the ice, and cre­ates life­long con­nec­tions.

As part of this im­mer­sive jour­ney, I had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn from and en­gage with some of the most in­flu­en­tial fig­ures in the glob­al game—heads from the Span­ish Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, Eng­lish FA, Irish FA, Greek Su­per League, Nor­way FA, Qatar FA, Scot­tish FA, Ger­man FA, Koso­vo and Es­ton­ian FAs. Al­so present were rep­re­sen­ta­tives from icon­ic clubs like AC Mi­lan, Re­al Madrid, Ju­ven­tus, Ar­se­nal, and lead voic­es from Eu­ro 2024, La Liga, and Tik­Tok In­ter­na­tion­al. Even leg­endary ex-Ger­man in­ter­na­tion­al Sa­mi Khedi­ra joined the line­up.

But be­yond the pres­tige and pow­er­house pre­sen­ta­tions, it was the per­son­al mo­ments and shared mem­o­ries that re­al­ly stood out. On the very first day, each par­tic­i­pant re­ceived a print­ed “Who’s Who” pro­file book­let, which sparked spon­ta­neous con­ver­sa­tions. Ken­ny Mil­lar of the Scot­tish FA im­me­di­ate­ly lit up when he saw I was from T&T, re­call­ing his love for Hi­bern­ian FC and the im­pact of Rus­sell Lat­apy. He fond­ly re­mem­bered Mar­vin An­drews and Tony Rougi­er and even shared that he cov­ered the So­ca War­riors’ 2006 World Cup jour­ney.

Kier­an Crow­ley from the Irish FA struck up a con­ver­sa­tion about Stern John, Ken­wyne Jones, and his own ties to Birm­ing­ham, where he fol­lowed many of our play­ers, al­so re­call­ing Den­nis Lawrence's coach­ing time at Ever­ton. He even men­tioned an at­tempt­ed friend­ly be­tween North­ern Ire­land and T&T this year—ev­i­dence of how deep and cur­rent these con­nec­tions run.

Ragn­hild Con­nell of the Nor­way FA spoke about Even Pellerud’s time as head coach of the T&T women’s na­tion­al team in 2009–2010. In re­turn, I re­mind­ed her of a proud mo­ment for us—when our men’s se­nior team, led by Lat­apy’s bril­liant hat­trick, de­feat­ed Nor­way 3–2 at the Queen’s Park Oval (St Clair, Port-of-Spain) in 1996.

Pierre Kos­midis of the Greek Su­per League shared his ad­mi­ra­tion for Levi Gar­cia, de­scrib­ing him as a class act—pro­fes­sion­al, ap­proach­able, and tru­ly missed by AEK Athens fans since his move to Rus­sia, in­clud­ing his two lit­tle sons who shed tears when Gar­cia left.

And then there was Aman­da Docher­ty, our course lead and for­mer Ar­se­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tions head, who rem­i­nisced about her time work­ing with Sol Camp­bell—ref­er­enc­ing his stint with the T&T na­tion­al team in 2017, al­so re­mem­ber the Hoyte broth­ers, Justin and Gavin.

North­ern Ire­land FA's Nigel Tilson re­gret­ted not be­ing able to ac­com­pa­ny his na­tion­al team for a friend­ly against T&T in To­ba­go in 2004.

Even the more light-heart­ed anec­dotes car­ried weight. Richard Bag­nall, a PR mea­sure­ment ex­pert, shared sto­ries of his vis­its to Bar­ba­dos in the 1980s, in­clud­ing an un­for­get­table run-in (lit­er­al­ly) with Curt­ly Am­brose. Mo­ments like these, hu­mor­ous yet heart­felt, re­mind­ed me of how the Caribbean has qui­et­ly left im­pres­sions on peo­ple in places we don’t al­ways ex­pect.

These ex­changes weren’t just ca­su­al chit-chat. They were re­al-time bridges be­ing built—links that now con­nect T&T to de­ci­sion-mak­ers, sto­ry­tellers, and strate­gists from every cor­ner of Eu­ro­pean foot­ball. And what con­nect­ed us all? Shared mem­o­ries, mu­tu­al re­spect, and a love for the game.

This ex­pe­ri­ence reaf­firmed a deep truth: foot­ball isn’t just about tac­tics or tro­phies. It’s a glob­al lan­guage, a cul­tur­al con­nec­tor. Whether it's through a shared ad­mi­ra­tion for a play­er, a World Cup mem­o­ry, or a Caribbean hol­i­day, foot­ball cre­ates fa­mil­iar­i­ty and re­lata­bil­i­ty. And in strate­gic com­mu­ni­ca­tions, just like in diplo­ma­cy, that’s of­ten the hard­est part. When you find com­mon ground, doors open.

I re­turn home not just with a cer­tifi­cate, but with a re­newed sense of pur­pose. These new re­la­tion­ships, built on shared ex­pe­ri­ences and mu­tu­al cu­rios­i­ty, hold the po­ten­tial to bring mean­ing­ful ben­e­fits, not just to me, but to T&T’s foot­balling land­scape and be­yond. From pos­si­ble in­ter­na­tion­al friend­lies to col­lab­o­ra­tive projects in dig­i­tal me­dia and sport de­vel­op­ment, the pos­si­bil­i­ties are re­al.

And it all be­gan with con­ver­sa­tions—sparked by foot­ball, sus­tained by mu­tu­al re­spect.

Shaun Fuentes is the head of TTFA Me­dia and mar­ket­ing. 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 88 coun­tries dur­ing his jour­ney in sport. The views ex­pressed are sole­ly his and not a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of any or­gan­i­sa­tion. shaunfuentes@ya­hoo.com


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