"Once a year, go some­where you’ve nev­er been be­fore." (Ten­zin Gy­at­so, 14th Dalai Lama)

I say again that I am bored with the stan­dard­ised, ho­mogenised di­et of Eu­ro­pean foot­ball that is on dai­ly of­fer. I much pre­fer the un­known game, the raw, un­var­nished gems that one could un­earth by min­ing glob­al foot­ball on the in­ter­net. This is no mere search for en­ter­tain­ment. It re­quires a philo­soph­i­cal de­ci­sion to go where one's mind has nev­er gone be­fore.

Last week, I hap­pened on a match from the Lebanon First Di­vi­sion be­tween Al Ansar (David Nakhid's for­mer club) and Al Sa­hel - a good game as it turned out. In fact, Al Ansar had a play­er from Nakhid's DNA Lebanon acad­e­my on the pitch. I thought he would want to know so I con­tact­ed him. David and I agree on some things; on oth­ers, we do not. We share in com­mon the facts that we both at­tend­ed St Mary's Col­lege and cap­tained the school's In­ter­col team. And we share a love of foot­ball. He was shocked and asked how I ac­cessed the event. My re­sponse to him (and to you, the read­er) was "FI­FA+. Ac­cess foot­ball from across the Third World for free on this app" - lit­tle-known leagues with un­known teams, anony­mous play­ers and no mar­ket­ing from Africa, Asia, Cen­tral and even North Amer­i­ca. FI­FA+ is a true ad­ven­ture in­to the un­known.

My love af­fair with foot­ball be­gan in child­hood. But the 1966 Eng­land World Cup trans­formed that love qual­i­ta­tive­ly, from mere joy in play­ing to the pas­sion of be­ing a stu­dent of the game. It is the first World Cup that I re­mem­ber. I was 13. That was the World Cup of Moore, Hurst and Charl­ton (Eng­land), Eu­se­bio, Col­u­na and Simoes (Por­tu­gal), Rat­tin, Ar­time and Mas (Ar­genti­na), leg­ends Maier, Beck­en­bauer and Seel­er (West Ger­many), mys­te­ri­ous North Ko­rea with the en­tire­ly un­known Pak Doo Ik who scored the goal that scut­tled high­ly rat­ed Italy 1:0 and sent them home in dis­grace af­ter the group stage, and in­nu­mer­able oth­er stars of oth­er coun­tries, too many to re­count. That was the World Cup that bap­tised your hum­ble ser­vant as a true be­liev­er in Brazil, even if they al­so crashed and burned in the group phase.

With the in­jured phe­nom­e­non Pele on the side­lines, crafty Tostao still too young at 19, and the flawed ge­nius Gar­rin­cha at the end of his ca­reer and on his way to obliv­ion in a long run­ning af­fair with al­co­hol, the 1958 and 1962 dou­ble cham­pi­on was out­gunned by Por­tu­gal (3-1) and Hun­gary (3-1) and despatched home to nurse their bat­tered pride un­til 1970. That was the first World Cup on lo­cal tele­vi­sion. We watched it in a grainy black and white video on TTT months af­ter the fact - one se­lect­ed match on Sat­ur­day nights. But in 1966, Trinidad and To­ba­go, still in the full flush of in­de­pen­dence from colo­nial Britain, ex­pand­ed my child's vi­sion and un­der­stand­ing of the world and foot­ball. It was more than met­ro­pol­i­tan Eu­rope. It was THE in­ter­na­tion­al game and it be­longed to us too.

In those days, there was no guar­an­teed African team and CON­CA­CAF had but one rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Mex­i­co. But I learned that foot­ball was the game of the glob­al mass­es. It fired my imag­i­na­tion. And I want­ed in. I went on to cap­tain our na­tion­al Un­der-19 team. Foot­ball trans­port­ed me from Ari­ma to Howard Uni­ver­si­ty, to CON­CA­CAF and FI­FA. I have coached SS­FL (Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League), club and na­tion­al teams since 1987. And with my wife, I start­ed FC San­ta Rosa in 1992.

Wel­come to the bom­bon­era!

Every week­end, I still coach U-11s in my club's foot­ball school. This is a labour of love and du­ty. Teach­ing the young is the most im­por­tant un­der­tak­ing any­one could shoul­der. In Rosa foot­ball school, we al­ways close the train­ing day with a small-sided game and I name the teams. This is an im­por­tant ex­er­cise to us. The psy­chol­o­gy of chil­dren of this age al­lows them to self-im­merse in the fan­ta­sy of play­ing for the club whose name I as­sign them. Why? Be­cause chil­dren up to age 11 are in prime ter­ri­to­ry for adopt­ing a foot­ball team as part of their iden­ti­ty. Psy­chol­o­gists call this so­cial iden­ti­ty de­vel­op­ment. By age 7-8, most chil­dren have a favourite team, and by 10-11, they will de­fend it, ar­gue about it, and feel gen­uine agony and ec­sta­sy from re­sults.

In Rosa, they play their lit­tle match­es like they are de­fend­ing the name and colours of their as­signed club. And the patch they play on is trans­formed in­to the Bom­bon­era, the sto­ried home of Ar­gen­tin­ian su­per­club Bo­ca Ju­niors. We have done this since the club's be­gin­nings in 1992. Four play­ers in our re­cent FI­FA Se­ries na­tion­al squad–An­dre Ram­per­sad, Du­ane Muck­ette, Nathaniel James and John Paul Rochford–grew up hear­ing me be­gin these games with the cry, "Wel­come to the Bom­bon­era!"

Youth coach­es have a mas­sive op­por­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate life­long foot­ball lovers and to use foot­ball to ex­pand the life vista and aca­d­e­m­ic knowl­edge of their charges. Sport is one of the best hooks for aca­d­e­mics be­cause chil­dren are emo­tion­al­ly in­vest­ed. Coach­es mere­ly need to con­nect the game chil­dren love to the in­for­ma­tion they wish them to learn. Do that and every train­ing ses­sion be­comes a plat­form for teach­ing his­to­ry, ge­og­ra­phy, math­e­mat­ics, lan­guages, pol­i­tics, I could go on. Which coun­try is that club from? What con­ti­nent? What lan­guage do they speak? What cur­ren­cy do they use?

Left to their own de­vices, to­day's chil­dren (and most adults too) au­to­mat­i­cal­ly choose big Eu­ro­pean clubs as their favourites–Barcelona, Re­al Madrid, Man­ches­ter City or Unit­ed, Paris St Ger­main, the like. This is not their fault. Chil­dren know on­ly what is fed to them. But adults have choice. We live with­in the USA/West­ern Eu­ro­pean cul­tur­al or­bit, which is re­in­forced dai­ly via for­eign film, mu­sic, lega­cy me­dia and ca­ble tele­vi­sion/stream­ing. This shapes what we val­ue be­cause we val­ue what we see and hear re­peat­ed and re­ward­ed most. And it ac­tive­ly nar­rows our world­view, mak­ing us snobs (wit­ting­ly and un­wit­ting­ly) about most of what is ex­ter­nal to the fa­mil­iar for­eign-in­flu­enced sphere.

How­ev­er, for Rosa train­ing games, I se­lect the clubs ran­dom­ly, al­ways with the in­tent of im­plant­i­ng and re­in­forc­ing in young minds ear­ly no­tions of foot­ball as a glob­al phe­nom­e­non that is not the pre­serve of Eu­rope; of the world be­ing a "big place" in which to fash­ion their fu­ture and of which USA/Eu­rope is not the cen­tre. So the Rosa chil­dren play as Co­lo Co­lo (Chile), Urawa Red Di­a­monds (Japan), Mamelo­di Sun­downs (South Africa), Club Améri­ca (Mex­i­co), Al Ahli (Sau­di Ara­bia) or any oth­er club from un­known and un­fash­ion­able ports of call across the globe that comes to mind in the mo­ment. With World Cup 2026 in the off­ing, we will soon be­gin us­ing na­tion­al teams.

Every gen­er­a­tion comes to ma­tu­ri­ty be­liev­ing what it grew up with was "the best". What you see and know first be­comes fa­mil­iar and per­ma­nent be­cause you are in it, even as the world around you evolves. Tri­ni foot­ball lovers of my gen­er­a­tion large­ly sup­port Brazil in the World Cup be­cause we grew up be­tween 1958 and 1970 - the first era of Brazil­ian dom­i­nance, dur­ing which they won three world ti­tles.

Every­one loves a win­ner, but I was in­stinc­tive­ly drawn to Brazil­ian flair and the fact that their ranks in­clud­ed so many play­ers "of colour" - rar­i­ties in a FI­FA that was still be­ing de­colonised. Sub­se­quent gen­er­a­tions opt­ed for the Nether­lands, Ger­many, Italy and Ar­genti­na as their favourites, and more re­cent­ly, France and Spain. The world of foot­ball sup­port­ers is much less Brazil­ian to­day, and the cur­rent gen­er­a­tion will not even con­sid­er Italy be­cause they have now failed to qual­i­fy for three tour­na­ments suc­ces­sive­ly. Win or be for­got­ten.

Sev­er­al coun­tries will de­but at World Cup 2026. Oth­ers will be re­turn­ing for the first time in decades. Of these, CON­CA­CAF's Caribbean teams, Cu­ra­cao and Haiti, face Her­culean odds against ad­vanc­ing out of their group. The debu­tants I an­tic­i­pate per­form­ing well are Iraq and Uzbek­istan. The Iraqis, who re­vealed re­al qual­i­ty in de­feat­ing CON­MEBOL's Bo­livia 2:1 in FI­FA's in­ter-con­ti­nen­tal play­off, meet Sene­gal (cham­pi­on of Africa), France (2022 fi­nal­ist and favourite to take the 2026 ti­tle, and Nor­way (win­ner of its UE­FA qual­i­fy­ing group) - a very tough crowd. The Uzbeks will face Por­tu­gal (al­so win­ner of its UE­FA qual­i­fy­ing group), Colom­bia (third in CON­MEBOL qual­i­fy­ing) and DR Con­go (FI­FA in­ter-con­fed­er­a­tion win­ner against Ja­maica).

What­ev­er their per­for­mance and re­sults, I am with the teams which the glob­al cognoscen­ti, pun­dits and fan­dom be­lieve will de­val­ue the ex­pand­ed tour­na­ment; the teams every­one writes off with­out know­ing much, if any­thing at all, about them, sim­ply be­cause they rep­re­sent "small" coun­tries. I keep hop­ing for an­oth­er North Ko­rea 1966. May it be so.