Well, well, well-the politically embattled Jack Warner sprang something of a surprise when he announced that Tobago-specifically the Dwight Yorke Stadium-would be the venue for Trinidad and Tobago's next home match in this the last phase of qualifying for the World Cup scheduled for South Africa in 2010.
Consider, firstly, that this is Dwight's first match back since the two-match suspension he somewhat wastefully picked up after that, well, "wasted" match against El Salvador when we were within minutes (seconds!) of a 2-0 win before (Let's hear it for the battling Salvadorians!) having to settle for a 2-2 draw.
Consider, secondly, that this is Russell's first match as the coach of the national team and, then, connect the dots in the Warner mind-the two boyhood-into-manhood friends coming together at this pivotal moment, the Tobagonian crowd so hyped for the occasion that the Costa Ricans encounter the kind of intimidating vociferous support that we have never seen in Trinidad-whatever the lessons we have not learnt from our own experiences whenever we find ourselves having to play these "latinos" in their own homes.
Man, all Jack needs to do to make the thing complete would be to have Dwight Yorke do an opening walk around the stadium, the man after whom the stadium has been named, Dwight and Latapy, being the country's most triumphant triumvirate, books waiting to be written about how these three lads met as 12-year-olds (or somewhere around that), became friends (genius attracting genius), made a pact to impact on the world in their two disciplines and then, mirabile dictu proceeded to do just that!
Lord knows, this national football team needs something magical to prevail against Costa Rica, or any team for that matter , on the basis of the evidence of their woeful display against their American nemesis (and, look!, how America, this Johnny-come-lately, has come to be the CONCACAF powerhouse-guess there's something to be said (actually a lot!) for money, population size and, of course, organisation). And Jack may have hit upon this Yorke-with-Latapy-at the-Dwight-Yorke Stadium scenario as the most likely gambit to pull off this magic.
Man, if the Fifa man pulls this stunt off and victory in Tobago marks the start of a run that will take us to South Africa I will be the first cheer-leader to ask that be anointed Seer-Man-of-the Millennium.
Never mind that, by then, we will only be 10 years into it but who, pray is going to come up with anything as visionary in the 90 years it will take to round off the 100.
Of course, we will have to wait and see what South Africa will be like by then, no less a South African icon than Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu venturing earlier this week that South Africa's next likely president, Jacob Zuma, is no Thabo Mbeki (not that he ever stuck me as being from the top drawer) much less Nelson Mandela, the former apartheid state now moving agonisingly into uncharted waters, millions of white mouths waiting to say "I told you so!" as if much of the blight that scours Africa wasn't caused b y white meddling in the first place.
Tutu has long questioned the leadership qualities of Zuma, who has bounced back from rape and corruption accusations and remains an "avowed polygamist", but, like it or lump it, Zuma seems to be headed for the top job, one of his challenges, then, being to provide a site for the World Cup that is not convulsed by upheaval in which case, Dwight and the boys, following the Tobago turn-around would have to be packing their bags for some place that is enduringly stable-America under Obama, for that matter.