"A WIN is a win" is what most fans were saying Wednesday night after Trinidad and Tobago squeezed past El Salvador in the 2010 World Cup qualifier at the Hasely Crawford Stadium.
With Costa Rica, Honduras, the USA and Mexico--in that order-- in pole position for the three automatic qualifying spots and the playoff berth against the fifth-placed country in South America, T&T are playing catch-up and battling against the odds to make it to South Africa next year.
Hope springs eternal, though, and as long as there are games to be played we have to keep the faith and continue to support head coach Russell Latapy and the national team.
But we could also grudgingly admit that we lost the plot as long ago as last year when Latapy's predecessor Francisco Maturana overstayed his welcome and put us in dire straits with his questionable selections.
Maybe Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation special adviser Jack Warner had to deal with too many distractions, what with all the trouble brewing in his political career with the hierarchy of the Opposition UNC, but he should have gotten rid of Maturana from the time we scraped past Bermuda in the first outing on the road to South Africa in 2008.
That almost disastrous setback was reason enough to give the Colombian his walking papers but Warner persisted and then had to sit through another embarrassing round of results when Trinidad and Tobago couldn't even manage a top-four finish in last year's Caribbean Cup in Jamaica and missed out on the lucrative CONCACAF Gold Cup contested last month in the United States.
That should have been the swansong for any self-respecting national coach, but somehow Warner stuck with Maturana and instead of going into 2009 with a clean slate and a new technical staff we stumbled into the final round and then had to suffer the ignominy of a shameful defeat to the USA when our coach put together a pick-up squad which really didn't have a clue and looked totally at sea.
That finally proved to be the straw that broke Jack's back and within a few days of that pathetic display in Nashville, Maturana had tendered his resignation, three games too late and with four points gone missing in the draws against El Salvador and Honduras.
Warner finally handed Latapy the reins, obviously hoping that he could live up to his nickname of "The Little Magician" and pull some positive results out of his hat. But that was always asking too much and there were two more setbacks, albeit against front-runners Costa Rica in Tobago and then in the cauldron of Estadio Azteca where Mexico got their stuttering campaign back on track.
Latapy has been given a tall and thankless task by T&T's football supremo, who should have pulled the trigger on Maturana a long time ago and shown the country's most skilful player the office since the start of the year. But that is now water on the main road and we can only look to the future and put systems in place for 2014 and beyond.
Already Latapy has placed his stamp on the programme and adopted attack as the best form of defence, introduced some exciting young talents like Hayden Tinto and given the opportunity to honest, hard-working players like Trent Noel who have been knocking on the door for a long time.
He's also made mistakes, like combining Marvin Andrews and Dennis Lawrence--both on the wrong side of 35 and past their prime--in the heart of the defence against an attacking team like Costa Rica. And sticking with good friend Dwight Yorke, who was sadly lacking match fitness, for the full outing against the Ticos, although with a bit of luck we could have held on for at least a draw.
But that's what it's all about and further reason to regret Warner's tardiness in showing Maturana the door, because with the lack of practice matches between the real thing, Latapy has very little opportunity to test players and tactics.
He secured his first triumph as a head coach on Wednesday but I'm sure he would admit that his goal-scorers let him down and should have sewn up the three points long before we had to go through the torment of the last ten minutes when El Salvador were a good shot away from earning a draw.
"Looking at Trinidad football is not for the faint-hearted," exclaimed one fan at the stadium that night, while another joked that his pacemaker was working real good all the time but he wasn't sure now after El Salvador put it to the test.
Speedy Cornell Glen, who a spectator compared to the Energiser bunny, started for T&T and more than proved his worth, now that he is match-fit and free of the many injuries that have plagued his career, scoring a well-taken goal for which he did all the hard work. But strike partner Kenwyne Jones--of whom I am one of his biggest supporters--owes us a goal or two, which would also give him much-needed confidence as he starts the new English Premier League season, with his starting place at Sunderland under threat with new manager Steve Bruce bringing in the likes of Darren Bent and Frazier Campbell.
And there's Jason Scotland--who also needs to get on the scoresheet again for T&T--opening a new chapter in his career in moving up to the Premiership with Wigan.
Hopefully he can settle in quickly in the top flight, because between him, Glen and Jones, we will need a few strikes in T&T's next four World Cup qualifiers if we want to keep alive the dream of getting to South Africa.
It may already be out of our hands but the "Soca Warriors" can keep up the good fight and make themselves proud and give us all something, anything, to smile about over the next two months.