There is some­thing deeply Trinida­di­an and To­bag­on­ian about the way we ex­pe­ri­ence foot­ball. We feel it loud­ly, pas­sion­ate­ly and emo­tion­al­ly but rarely pa­tient­ly. We love the idea of what could be far more than the dis­ci­pline of what must be done. And nowhere is that con­tra­dic­tion clear­er than in two fa­mil­iar mo­ments: our ob­ses­sion with po­ten­tial and our col­lec­tive pan­ic the mo­ment we take a 1–0 lead.

This isn’t just about foot­ball. It’s cul­tur­al. We cel­e­brate the promise of to­mor­row while rush­ing the work of to­day. We want the head­line, the break­through, the vi­ral clip, but we strug­gle to sit with process, rep­e­ti­tion and in­cre­men­tal growth. Foot­ball sim­ply ex­pos­es this truth un­der bright lights.

Last week’s 1–0 win over St Mar­tin in the Con­ca­caf Men’s U17 qual­i­fiers was a per­fect case study. On pa­per, it was a pos­i­tive re­sult. Three points. A clean sheet. Job done. But in­side the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, you could feel the ten­sion. From the stands to the bench, from the touch­line to so­cial me­dia, the mood shift­ed al­most im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the goal went in. Re­lief, yes, but al­so anx­i­ety. We stopped ask­ing, “How do we build on this?” and start­ed whis­per­ing, “Please don’t con­cede.”

That re­ac­tion didn’t come from nowhere. It’s learnt be­hav­iour. It’s decades of near-miss­es, what-ifs and scars passed down from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion of sup­port­ers. We’ve lived too many mo­ments where a sin­gle lapse erased good work. So when we go 1–0 up, our in­stinct isn’t con­trol—it’s sur­vival.

At the youth lev­el, that mind­set is even more re­veal­ing. These play­ers are still learn­ing how to man­age game states, emo­tions and ex­pec­ta­tions. Yet they are al­ready ab­sorb­ing the ten­sion around them. You see it in the body lan­guage on the bench, in rushed clear­ances, and in de­ci­sion-mak­ing that sud­den­ly pri­ori­tis­es safe­ty over in­tent. The game nar­rows. The shoul­ders tight­en. Foot­ball be­comes some­thing to en­dure rather than ex­press.

And this is where our love af­fair with po­ten­tial com­pli­cates things.

We are very good at iden­ti­fy­ing tal­ent. In schools, com­mu­ni­ties and acad­e­mies across Trinidad and To­ba­go, there is no short­age of flair, ath­leti­cism and cre­ativ­i­ty. We talk eas­i­ly about “raw abil­i­ty” and “nat­ur­al foot­ballers”. We post clips. We hype prospects. We speak about “the next one”.

But po­ten­tial, by it­self, is un­fin­ished busi­ness.

Process is what turns promise in­to per­for­mance. The process is bor­ing. It is rep­e­ti­tion, struc­ture, un­com­fort­able hon­esty and time. It is tac­ti­cal ed­u­ca­tion, phys­i­cal prepa­ra­tion, men­tal train­ing and ex­po­sure to re­al pres­sure be­fore it counts. And his­tor­i­cal­ly, this is where we strug­gle.

Match­es over the years, es­pe­cial­ly the last two to three years, have shown both sides of that coin. The tal­ent has been ev­i­dent. The com­mit­ment has been there. The mo­ments. Trinidad and To­ba­go have time and again cre­at­ed chances that could — and maybe should — have killed the game ear­li­er. But in­stead of con­trol­ling tem­po af­ter tak­ing the lead, our teams have drift­ed in­to pro­tec­tion mode. This isn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly fear in a vac­u­um; it has been fear born from un­cer­tain­ty, un­cer­tain­ty about what comes next when the plan isn’t ful­ly in­grained.

This isn’t a crit­i­cism of the play­ers or even a head coach. It’s an in­dict­ment of a sys­tem that of­ten asks young foot­ballers to per­form un­der tour­na­ment pres­sure with­out hav­ing lived enough of the process be­fore­hand. When prepa­ra­tion is in­con­sis­tent, con­fi­dence be­comes frag­ile. And frag­ile con­fi­dence pan­ics at 1–0.

Across glob­al foot­ball re­search, one theme is con­sis­tent: teams that man­age nar­row leads well are not the most tal­ent­ed but the most pre­pared. They un­der­stand spac­ing, pos­ses­sion, emo­tion­al reg­u­la­tion and de­ci­sion-mak­ing un­der stress. These are not in­stincts; they are taught be­hav­iours. They come from rep­e­ti­tion in com­pet­i­tive en­vi­ron­ments, from coach­es be­ing al­lowed time to build ideas, and from play­ers fail­ing safe­ly be­fore suc­cess is de­mand­ed.

In Trinidad and To­ba­go, we of­ten in­vert that or­der. We de­mand suc­cess first, then ask ques­tions about the process af­ter. When re­sults dip, we re­treat to fa­mil­iar lan­guage: “The po­ten­tial is there.” That phrase has be­come both a com­fort blan­ket and an ex­cuse.

The dan­ger of over-ro­man­ti­cis­ing po­ten­tial is that it cre­ates im­pa­tience with growth. Youth teams are ex­pect­ed to per­form like fin­ished prod­ucts. Coach­es are judged on out­comes rather than de­vel­op­ment. And when a team takes a 1–0 lead, the weight of ex­pec­ta­tion be­comes heav­ier than the ball it­self.

You could hear it in the stands last week. The en­cour­age­ment slow­ly turned in­to ner­vous in­struc­tions shout­ed from all an­gles. “Clear it.” “Hold it.” “Don’t lose it.” Well-mean­ing, pas­sion­ate — but re­veal­ing. We weren’t urg­ing the team to play; we were urg­ing them to sur­vive.

Yet foot­ball his­to­ry tells us some­thing un­com­fort­able: teams that play not to lose usu­al­ly do.

If we tru­ly want to change out­comes, we have to change em­pha­sis. That means valu­ing process as loud­ly as we praise po­ten­tial. It means ac­cept­ing that de­vel­op­ment in­cludes mis­takes, even painful ones, and that com­po­sure at 1–0 is built long be­fore the score­board changes.

It al­so means re­fram­ing what progress looks like. A con­trolled per­for­mance, even with­out a blowout score, is growth. A team that con­tin­ues to play its foot­ball af­ter scor­ing is learn­ing. A bench that stays en­gaged, calm and pur­pose­ful is ev­i­dence of trust in prepa­ra­tion.

The St Mar­tin win should be seen not just as a re­sult, but as a mir­ror. It showed us where we are and where we still need to go. The next step is deep­er work.

When Trinidad and To­ba­go learns to love process as much as po­ten­tial, a 1–0 lead won’t feel like a threat. It will feel like an in­vi­ta­tion.

And that, more than any sin­gle vic­to­ry, is how cul­tures change.

This isn’t just about foot­ball and sport. In Trinidad and To­ba­go, we of­ten cel­e­brate po­ten­tial in pol­i­tics, busi­ness, and so­cial ini­tia­tives while grow­ing im­pa­tient with the sys­tems and process­es that ac­tu­al­ly de­liv­er re­sults. We pan­ic at small set­backs, chase head­lines, and re­ward short-term wins over long-term progress.

The les­son from the pitch is clear: whether in foot­ball or so­ci­ety, suc­cess de­pends on trust­ing the process, build­ing re­silience, and stay­ing com­posed when we lead. If we ap­ply that mind­set more broad­ly by sup­port­ing in­sti­tu­tions, nur­tur­ing tal­ent, and valu­ing steady progress over in­stant grat­i­fi­ca­tion, we can turn po­ten­tial in­to re­al, last­ing out­comes across the coun­try.

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 the 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