Global media eyes TT

It’s certainly helped that TT are in Group B which also contains England, the home of a disproportionately high number of media houses particularly in the print press who are always on the lookout for an unusual story. This was also reflected by the strong UK media presence in Trinidad for the match against Peru.

Adding to the British focus on the Soca Warriors is the traditional British sympathy for the underdog in any situation, recalling that British history is filled with glorious episodes of the underdog holding out and defeating a larger enemy such as King Alfred the Great against the Vikings, Robert the Bruce against the English, and Francis Drake beating the Spanish Armada.

But even so, the Belfast Telegraph complained of the blind jingoism that the World Cup brings out in the English media. Perhaps this is illustrated in a story in the Financial Times by Jonathan Wilson: “And whose foot will the slipper fit?” which dismissively says of the Warriors: “Certainly England’s group, including Paraguay and Trinidad and Tobago, should offer scoring opportunities.”

From North America, Fort Wayne News-Sentinel journalist Maria Burns scoffed at the Warriors chances saying a $10 bet on TT might just as well be burnt. “The other day I received a text message from a friend regarding a World Cup pool he was in. It read, ‘I got Trinidad and Tobago. That’s a good pick, right?’ ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Unless you mean to win the whole thing. If that’s the case, you could have just set your $10 on fire.’ Checking the betting line on the Internet, Trinidad and Tobago’s odds of winning the World Cup are as high as 2001:1, the worst of any participating team.”

Another American newspaper was more enthusiastic. New Jersey’s Courier Post Online said: “The Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago is the tournament’s biggest dark horse with odds of 1,500 to 1. But that won’t deter Cherry Hill’s John Millington (from Arima) from rooting for his native land. ‘They say we’re a bunch of fanatics, but we love our soccer and we love the World Cup.’” Like Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago occupies a place in the mind of many international reporters as an exotic tropical paradise which like Brazil also has a world famous Carnival.

Making the point was a reporter who arrived in Germany from Australia’s Courier-Mail who said, “But it’s about more than football, it’s about sitting in the middle of a cultural feast. I love being in a cafe in one of the host cities and connecting with fans from the Ivory Coast or Trinidad and Tobago and knowing that, at home, the Italian fans are celebrating in Lygon Street down in Melbourne and the Czech fans are getting together somewhere else.”

The Soca Warriors also draw support from the fact that one-quarter of the squad is comprised of players who play in Scotland, particularly one who shares his name with the country, Jason Scotland.

In Scotland’s Sunday Herald journalist Leanna MacLarty continued the saga of Scottish support for TT in a story entitled “Misery for fans as ‘Scotland’ tops run out,” which refers to the sale of Trinidad and Tobago jerseys sporting the name of Jason Scotland.

She quipped, “Official Trinidad and Tobago World Cup shirts have now become rarer in retail stores north of the Border than a qualification for Scotland in the tournament.” She said that Adidas, the maker of the shirts, sent extra deliveries to Scotland in April but those being delivered to Glasgow won’t reach the shelves as they have all been pre-ordered by forward-thinking fans.

Scotland’s Daily Record reported a Scottish Roman Catholic priest, Fr Willie McFadden, as warning Scotsmen that it could be a sin to oppose England, Trinidad and Tobago’s rivals, if this was being motivated by the wrong reasons. But the newspaper also reported Perthshire Tartan Army club head John Kaylor as dismissing the warning, and vowing to support Trinidad and Tobago and the other Group B rivals of England.