Mo­men­tum is one of the most un­der­rat­ed forces in sport and in cul­ture. It’s in­vis­i­ble, but when it’s with you, every­one feels it. The en­er­gy is dif­fer­ent. The con­ver­sa­tions change. Even the body lan­guage of play­ers, fans, and ad­min­is­tra­tors tells a sto­ry of be­lief. But when it fades, every­thing be­comes hard­er.

Af­ter our 2-0 loss to Ja­maica in Sep­tem­ber, some­thing in­ter­est­ing hap­pened in the Trinidad and To­ba­go camp. In­stead of de­spair, there was a sense of de­ter­mi­na­tion, a be­lief that this team could still pull through. Dwight Yorke's staff, the play­ers, even the wider foot­ball fra­ter­ni­ty held on­to that con­vic­tion. It wasn’t loud op­ti­mism, it was qui­et con­fi­dence.

Then came the bounce-back vic­to­ry over Bermu­da. It wasn’t per­fect but it was enough to re­mind every­one what’s pos­si­ble when we’re switched on, con­nect­ed, and pur­pose­ful. The Cu­ra­cao game fol­lowed, and in foot­ball terms, that’s where the men­tal and cul­tur­al test kicked in.

We need­ed to win. We be­lieved we should win. And yet, de­spite a strong start and sol­id mo­ments, it end­ed in a draw. Im­me­di­ate­ly, there was dis­ap­point­ment, the kind that lingers. But with­in hours, an­oth­er feel­ing be­gan to rise: we’re still in it.

When the cal­cu­la­tions came in and the per­mu­ta­tions showed that two home wins against Ja­maica and Bermu­da could push us back in­to con­tention, be­lief re­turned. Play­ers spoke about it in con­ver­sa­tions. Fans reignit­ed con­ver­sa­tions on­line. Staff of­fi­cials car­ried a vis­i­ble sense of re­newed pur­pose.

But this is where mo­men­tum meets cul­ture.

In T&T, we love a come­back sto­ry. We thrive on emo­tion, pas­sion, and mo­ments of hype. But our great­est chal­lenge, across sport, busi­ness and even na­tion­al life, is con­sis­ten­cy. When the match is over, we tend to drift back in­to rou­tine. Play­ers re­turn to their clubs, staff to their du­ties, and fans to their dai­ly lives. Some of this is war­rant­ed. But we al­ways need to be wary of that rhythm of be­lief start­ing to fade un­less some­thing ac­tive­ly keeps it alive.

Mo­men­tum in sport isn’t just about phys­i­cal per­for­mance. It’s emo­tion­al. It’s or­gan­i­sa­tion­al and it’s cul­tur­al.

A na­tion that un­der­stands how to sus­tain en­er­gy be­yond the big mo­ment, how to keep the fire burn­ing through prepa­ra­tion, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and shared fo­cus, is a na­tion that wins more con­sis­tent­ly. That’s what sep­a­rates the teams and coun­tries that “al­most get there” from the ones that cross the line.

For me per­son­al­ly, I al­ways try to use every ex­pe­ri­ence as some­thing mean­ing­ful for fu­ture at­tempts. Of course, we know World Cup qual­i­fy­ing is ul­ti­mate­ly about show­ing up and get­ting re­sults. That’s the busi­ness we’re in. But even in the mo­ments where we fall short, there are lessons that go far be­yond the fi­nal whis­tle.

This cam­paign, for ex­am­ple, has shown us pat­terns and be­hav­iours that can be ap­plied across the board, not just in foot­ball, but in how we man­age oth­er sports, in­sti­tu­tions, and even na­tion­al projects. The im­por­tance of rhythm. The need to main­tain be­lief sys­tems. The val­ue of keep­ing peo­ple en­gaged and mo­ti­vat­ed, even when the out­come isn’t im­me­di­ate­ly vis­i­ble.

I’ve been get­ting the feel from sev­er­al past play­ers and even some coach­es, es­pe­cial­ly from that mem­o­rable 2006 World Cup team, that they be­lieve and have seen signs of re­al progress. Of course, the FA doesn’t al­ways get it all right, but there’s at least a gen­uine ef­fort to im­prove sys­tems, struc­tures, and pro­vi­sions. You can sense that will­ing­ness to evolve, and that alone is a pos­i­tive shift.

The women’s qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign will be an­oth­er test, as that ver­sion of our na­tion­al teams al­so tries to rise again. Their jour­ney car­ries its own in­spi­ra­tion and pres­sure but it’s an­oth­er re­minder that T&T foot­ball is slow­ly try­ing to re­build a cul­ture of be­lief and con­sis­ten­cy.

Over­all, this World Cup cam­paign has al­so giv­en hope to the wider Caribbean. Na­tions like Suri­name, Haiti, and Cu­ra­cao have all shown that our re­gion can stand toe-to-toe with the rest of Con­ca­caf when prepa­ra­tion meets pur­pose. That re­gion­al rise in com­pet­i­tive­ness should push us, not dis­cour­age us be­cause every Caribbean step for­ward strength­ens the col­lec­tive stan­dard we’re all try­ing to reach.

As we move to­ward No­vem­ber’s home games, the mis­sion is clear: keep the buzz alive. From the train­ing ground to the tech­ni­cal rooms, from the fans in the stands to the small talk at the bars, be­lief has to stay ac­tive.

The dif­fer­ence be­tween hope and achieve­ment of­ten lies in those in-be­tween days when noth­ing ma­jor is hap­pen­ing, but the mind­set stays switched on.

Cul­ture can ei­ther drain or dri­ve mo­men­tum. The chal­lenge for T&T now is to make our cul­ture of rhythm, pas­sion, and to­geth­er­ness the en­gine that sus­tains be­lief all the way through.

Be­cause mo­men­tum isn’t luck. It’s a habit. And if we can mas­ter that not just in foot­ball, but as a na­tion, then our mo­ments of promise can fi­nal­ly be­come sea­sons of progress.