Come on people, our country needs you. Your national football team needs your support. To give up, capitulate and not give of our best will relegate our nation into a quagmire of weakness.
Success is not judged by the end result but by the effort put forth in preparation and execution of a given task.
Our players are working hard daily, to improve their performances.
The coaching staff and management are doing all in their power to attain a positive result. As fans and patriots, we too, must do our endeavour best to ensure and procure that on Saturday, the Hasley Crawford Stadium will be packed to capacity.
This will not ensure a victory and the consequential invaluable three points. However it will ensure that we know in our hearts that we are not cowards. We will be successful, regardless of the end result, simply because we put our heart and soul into the task at hand. To shirk our individual responsibility will only lead to us being losers in life, whether we in fact win the game or not.
A loser is afraid to try. A loser is able to manufacture countless excuses to justify nonchalance. A loser is afraid to take risks. Afraid to open up oneself to possible hurt, disappointment and, or heartbreak.
A loser therefore takes the safe position. A position which allows for equilibrium and balance in his or her emotional state. This relegates the loser to a basinful life.
The loser neither experiences emotional highs, bordering on ecstasy nor the emotional lows of “Tabanca”. In short losers are afraid to experience all that life has to offer.
A loser shies away from passion and settles for logical decisions formulated on the principles of risk management.
A loser drifts through life at a steady pace neither excelling nor failing. Simply put a loser is biding time, awaiting death.
T&T is not a nation for losers.
We have achieved incredible levels of international success together. Our tiny country has existed for over forty-two (42) years in harmony. We are made up of many different races, cultures, religions and ethnicities. We are a nation of courageous warriors. A warrior continues to battle no matter what the odds until the bitter end.
Win or lose, a warrior can always hold his, her head high. The battle for qualification for our first ever World Cup finals in football has only just begun.
When Panama arrives in T&T ahead of Saturday, it will only be our fourth game out of 10.
This game is crucial. We absolutely need three points to keep our hopes alive to eventually win the war. This is simply not the time to show weakness.
We as Trinbagonians must maintain the integrity of the front liners. If your fellow warrior slumps, we must pick him or her up. Any chinks in our armour will become magnified in the eyes of the enemy. The enemy will grow in confidence and become buoyed by the scent of blood.
We must not be responsible for making an already difficult task even harder for our boys. Sporting contests are not only won by physical attributes. Psychological warfare is as, if not more important, in influencing the respective outcome. We the people, must let the Panamanians know that they have come to battle the resolve and love a nation.
As they land in the airport, they must feel the passion of our people. The Immigration Officers must let them know that they are here to lose.
The porters must remove their maroon shirts and replace them with red “Warrior” jerseys. The bus driver must only play football and nation building anthems. The hotel in which they are staying must be inundated with posters of our Warriors, national flags and national paraphernalia.
Our local television stations, radio stations and print media should bombard them with images of our football heroes. Anywhere they venture, people should be shouting T&T forever, in the malls, at restaurants, at the practice fields, around the savannah, in the towns and on the roads.
I distinctly remember traveling to Costa Rica in 2001 to cover the Concacaf World Cup Qualifying match live on the radio. On the day of the game, there was a helicopter hovering over our team’s hotel waiting to follow the team bus to the stadium. Three television channels and most of the radio stations were receiving a continuous live report of the route being taken by the bus. People began running out of their homes, restaurants and watering holes to scream nationalistic slogans and to wave Costa Rican flags at our team.
This continued until the bus arrived at the stadium where 23,000 vociferous fans inside the stadium and a further 10,000 outside the stadium who had arrived five hours before kick off time greeted our boys.
The people played their part in ensuring the victory of their beloved team. Costa Rica won the game 3-0.
Celebrations went on well into the night. Such is the impact of a nation unified by a passion for football and a love of country.
So come on T&T, hold your heads up high. Let us support our Warriors against PANAMA.
We are not losers. We shall and must not give up until the war is over. We expect much of our players. We should also expect much of ourselves.
Be it resolved that Panama shall feel our Passion!