A World Cup that has found its voice

This has per­haps been one of the most pul­sat­ing starts to a World Cup in re­cent mem­o­ry and cer­tain­ly one of the best by a host na­tion and a Con­ca­caf rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the US team. The tem­po has been re­lent­less, the match­es have been com­pet­i­tive, and the in­ten­si­ty is strik­ing from the very first whis­tle.

The ques­tion, of course, is whether teams can sus­tain that lev­el over the com­ing weeks. Tour­na­ment foot­ball has a way of slow­ing as the stakes rise and the phys­i­cal de­mands in­crease. The knock­out rounds of­ten be­come more tac­ti­cal, more cau­tious, and less ex­pan­sive. Still, it will be fas­ci­nat­ing to see which teams can main­tain their en­er­gy and iden­ti­ty.

I was in­vit­ed to ap­pear on TV6 Morn­ing last Tues­day to share my views on the open­ing days of the FI­FA World Cup. This fol­lowed ap­pear­ances on Okko TV, Rus­sia’s largest stream­ing ser­vice, and TASS, the Russ­ian equiv­a­lent of Reuters, af­ter our re­cent trip there with the na­tion­al team.

Okko reached back out seek­ing fur­ther per­spec­tives on the tour­na­ment, the Caribbean pres­ence at the World Cup, and the progress of teams such as Cu­raçao Ser­vices. The Okko plat­form of­fers an ex­ten­sive cat­a­log of le­gal en­ter­tain­ment. It reach­es over 35 mil­lion month­ly ac­tive users world­wide, with web­site traf­fic of­ten ex­ceed­ing 39 mil­lion month­ly vis­its.

For me, there is gen­uine pride in hav­ing my voice heard through in­ter­na­tion­al plat­forms. Whether dis­cussing Trinidad and To­ba­go foot­ball, the Caribbean game, or the wider glob­al pic­ture, these op­por­tu­ni­ties re­mind us that our per­spec­tives car­ry val­ue.

Back to the tour­na­ment it­self. De­spite some of the oth­er things mak­ing the news, such as trav­el visa chal­lenges and the much-de­bat­ed hy­dra­tion breaks, the foot­ball has large­ly lived up to ex­pec­ta­tions.

South Ko­rea im­pressed de­spite per­haps be­ing slight­ly un­for­tu­nate with their re­sult against Mex­i­co. Their foot­ball has been pos­i­tive and am­bi­tious. Africa, mean­while, has ar­rived with force.

Even with­out tra­di­tion­al heavy­weights Cameroon and Nige­ria, the con­ti­nent has pro­duced strong rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Mo­roc­co con­tin­ues to build on re­cent suc­cess; DR Con­go has com­pet­ed well, while Cape Verde has once again demon­strat­ed that or­ga­ni­za­tion and be­lief can bridge gaps in re­sources and his­to­ry.

Swe­den al­so de­serves men­tion. The Nether­lands took their chances and were clin­i­cal when the op­por­tu­ni­ties ar­rived, but Swe­den were right there with them de­spite the fi­nal score­line yes­ter­day. They played at­trac­tive foot­ball, com­pet­ed strong­ly, and showed they be­long on this stage.

When speak­ing about con­tenders, how­ev­er, Ar­genti­na re­mains one of the teams every­one must watch. They pos­sess ex­pe­ri­ence, qual­i­ty, and the abil­i­ty to nav­i­gate tour­na­ment foot­ball. France equal­ly con­tin­ues to look every bit a ti­tle con­tender, blend­ing es­tab­lished stars with emerg­ing tal­ent.

Por­tu­gal, on the oth­er hand, per­haps has not ful­ly ar­rived at the par­ty yet. There is enor­mous tal­ent with­in their squad, but they still ap­pear to be search­ing for rhythm. Yet few would be will­ing to dis­count them.

Spain may not al­ways over­whelm op­po­nents, but tour­na­ment foot­ball of­ten re­wards pa­tience and con­trol. Ger­many, de­spite oc­ca­sion­al in­con­sis­ten­cies in re­cent years, con­tin­ue to car­ry the weight and tra­di­tion that makes them dan­ger­ous once knock­out foot­ball be­gins.

Per­haps they do not re­ceive the same lev­el of at­ten­tion as Ar­genti­na or France, but Dutch teams have his­tor­i­cal­ly been ca­pa­ble of qui­et­ly ad­vanc­ing deep in­to tour­na­ments. Their ef­fi­cien­cy, or­ga­ni­za­tion, and at­tack­ing qual­i­ty en­sure they re­main a threat.

Clos­er to home, Haiti and Cu­raçao will both seek to fin­ish strong­ly and leave their mark on the tour­na­ment.

For Cu­raçao, sim­ply com­pet­ing at this lev­el rep­re­sents an­oth­er sig­nif­i­cant step for Caribbean foot­ball. Haiti, mean­while, con­tin­ue to show ad­mirable re­silience and com­mit­ment de­spite dif­fi­cult hur­dles. Re­sults may not al­ways fol­low, but these tour­na­ments are al­so about demon­strat­ing that Caribbean na­tions have fought hard to be part of the glob­al con­ver­sa­tion. Pana­ma were sec­onds away from earn­ing a point against Ghana and will be keen to build on that open­ing per­for­mance.

One as­pect that has caught my at­ten­tion is how some of these World Cup teams com­pare to op­po­nents Trinidad and To­ba­go faced on­ly a year ago.

Rough­ly a year ago, the Amer­i­cans de­feat­ed T&T 5-0 in the Gold Cup. And ex­act­ly fif­teen play­ers from that match­day squad have now pro­gressed in­to the cur­rent Unit­ed States World Cup ros­ter.

Sev­en mem­bers of the start­ing eleven against Trinidad — in­clud­ing Matt Freese, Chris Richards, Tim Ream, Ma­lik Till­man and Se­bas­t­ian Berhal­ter, are now World Cup play­ers. Eight ad­di­tion­al squad mem­bers from the bench have al­so made the tran­si­tion.

Why does this mat­ter? Be­cause it serves as a re­minder of the lev­el of op­po­si­tion T&T en­coun­ters in re­gion­al com­pe­ti­tion. These are not iso­lat­ed play­ers who dis­ap­pear af­ter a Gold Cup. Many be­come es­tab­lished in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ballers and World Cup par­tic­i­pants.

Trinidad and To­ba­go drew 1-1 with Sau­di Ara­bia dur­ing the 2025 Gold Cup and, had Justin Gar­cia’s ef­fort in the dy­ing mo­ments not crashed against the wood­work, the re­sult may have been even more mem­o­rable.

Six Sau­di play­ers who fea­tured against us have al­so ap­peared at their World Cup cam­paign this month. Saud Ab­dul­hamid, Ab­d­ule­lah Al-Am­ri, and Fi­ras Al-Bu­raikan all start­ed both match­es. Oth­ers, in­clud­ing Saleh Al-Shehri and Nawaf Al-Boushal, re­mained im­por­tant squad con­trib­u­tors.

Some may ar­gue that these con­nec­tions no longer mat­ter. I dis­agree.

These de­tails pro­vide valu­able con­text. And well Cu­ra­cao. While they might be at­tract­ing much fan­fare at this World Cup, I still main­tain that we were the bet­ter than them in both World Cup qual­i­fy­ing match­es last year.

It does not erase de­feats or ex­cuse short­com­ings. But it does help us mea­sure where we stand to some ex­tent.

As the World Cup pro­gress­es, there will be more sur­pris­es, more dis­ap­point­ments, and more emerg­ing sto­ries. Yet per­haps the biggest les­son from these open­ing days is that foot­ball’s map con­tin­ues to evolve.

New na­tions are com­pet­ing. Small­er coun­tries are mak­ing state­ments, and es­tab­lished pow­er­hous­es are be­ing test­ed.

And from tele­vi­sion stu­dios in T&T, stream­ing plat­forms in Rus­sia, and con­ver­sa­tions across con­ti­nents, the game con­tin­ues to con­nect us all.

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