Modern sport, and football in particular, demands much more from almost everybody involved because expectations are higher and the margins have become too small for people to simply fall back on “That is not my job.”
A national team can lose a match on Sunday partly because of things that went wrong on Thursday.
The hotel arrangements may have been poor, the team could have arrived late, meals may not have been properly organized or prepared an hour a day.
Late, equipment may not have arrived on time, or recovery could have been rushed. A change in schedule might not have been communicated properly, or the training venue may not have been suitable.
Sometimes not getting the right travel time between the hotel and training venue could throw things off, as what was disclosed as a routine 20-minute drive turned into an hour in traffic with no police escort. That now means recovery, lunch or dinner, and meeting times for the remainder of the day have to be adjusted.
None of those things are spoken about. The public sees the scoreline and naturally judges the performance from what happened during the 90 minutes.
What people outside the team environment do not always see are the many small issues that can eventually affect what happens on the field.
That is why good administration can sometimes win you points before a ball is kicked. The upcoming schedule of events is yet another chance for us to make improvements.
We tend to talk about professionalism as though it always means having millions of dollars, expensive facilities, and large departments. Money certainly helps, but plenty of professionalism costs very little.
Being on time costs nothing. Answering an email or WhatsApp promptly and making sure players know the next day’s program before they go to bed costs nothing either.
Having somebody at the airport before the team arrives with the bus already waiting is not a million-dollar exercise, nor is ensuring that uniforms are ready, the media schedule is clear, the bus leaves on time, and everybody understands what is expected of them.
Those things eventually become part of the culture, and players respond differently when they enter an environment where everything appears organized and thought through.
We are seeing a few Caribbean countries becoming much more deliberate about the people they bring into their football structures.
Jamaica has always possessed athletic talent and football pedigree, but there is also an understanding that the structure around the sport matters. Curacao brought it with them, more so when Dick Advocaat came on the scene. Watching their organization during the World Cup qualifiers reminded me a lot of our time with Leo Beenhakker in 2005-2006.
It is interesting to see former Trinidad and Tobago captain Densill Theobald now involved with Racing United in Jamaica, a club with Trinidadian ownership. It speaks to how football in the region continues to change, with experience and personnel moving across borders and people bringing different ideas into new environments.
Grenada provides another example with the appointment of Stern John as head coach of their men’s national team. Both John and Theobald have experienced team organization and systems at the highest level, having been to a World Cup, something not a lot of regional personnel can speak of.
Naturally that attracts attention here because we know Stern’s history as a Trinidad and Tobago international who played at a World Cup and spent years in professional football in England.
His job in Grenada will involve much more than standing on a training field, choosing a formation and selecting eleven players.
He will have to help establish standards, understand the talent available locally, identify eligible players overseas, and work closely with administrators, medical staff, and team management. He will also have to communicate a vision that players want to be part of.
And he would be hoping that the Grenada FA can meet him halfway and give him the support needed to make it work.
That is what international football has become, and the same wider responsibility applies to almost every member of a modern team setup.
Team management today needs to understand logistics, player welfare, international travel regulations, tournament rules, and relationships with hotels, airlines, immigration authorities, and competition organizers.
A media officer cannot simply issue a press release and consider the job done. That role now includes helping to shape the image of the team, preparing players and coaches for interviews, managing information, understanding social media, and helping to build the connection between the team and the public.
I hold that responsibility, and with two decades of experience behind me, I’ve been fortunate to develop an understanding that goes well beyond the media side of the job. I’ve come to understand much more about competition operations, team organization, and the overall dynamics of a national team environment. These items also influence how we do things on the media side.
Operations staff have to anticipate problems instead of simply reacting when they occur, while administrators need enough understanding of the football side to appreciate why arriving a day earlier might matter or why changing a training session by two hours can affect preparation.
Even executives cannot afford to operate only at the boardroom level because they need some appreciation of what teams under their organization are actually experiencing.
Trinidad and Tobago football has had enough international experience over the years to understand the difference these things can make.
Our teams have travelled to World Cups, Gold Cups, Olympic qualifiers, youth championships, and countless Caribbean and Concacaf competitions. Sometimes arrangements have been excellent, sometimes ordinary, while on other occasions, players and staff have had to adjust and improvise.
Anyone who has spent time around teams knows that players notice these things. They know when an environment feels professional and when somebody has thought ahead, just as they notice when everything feels rushed or last-minute.
None of this means perfect administration guarantees victory. You can have the best hotel, meals, kit, and flights and still lose because the opposition was better.
The point is that poor organization creates an unnecessary handicap.
What is encouraging is that improvement does not always require a massive transformation or a huge injection of money.
In sports we sometimes become obsessed with the big announcements: new headquarters, training facilities, major funding, and five-year development plans.
Those things are important, but an organization can also make real progress by correcting ten small things it previously handled poorly.
Communication can improve, meetings can start on time, and information can be issued earlier. Players can be made to feel valued, and national teams can be presented better. Staff can have clearer roles and simply become better at following up and completing what they said they would do.
They may sound like ordinary things, but professional sport is often built on ordinary things being done well consistently.
That applies beyond football, whether it is cricket, athletics, swimming, cycling, or basketball. An athlete entering a national-team environment should immediately feel that he or she has entered something important.
The badge alone cannot create that feeling. The people around the athlete, the standards they maintain and the way the organisation handles its affairs all contribute to it.
The Caribbean has no shortage of sporting talent. The challenge is making sure the structures around that talent develop at the same pace.
Modern sport is no longer only about what happens when the whistle blows. The planning, communication, organization, and standards beforehand can put athletes in the best possible position to succeed.
Most of the time, if not all the time, that is where the match really begins.
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. [email protected]
