Club Sando’s moment deserves the biggest stage

Club Sando may not have reached the final of the Concacaf Caribbean Cup but the club is still standing on the doorstep of something significant.

Two matches against Haiti’s Violette AC separate the Trinidad and Tobago club from qualification for the 2027 Concacaf Champions Cup. The third-place playoff will be contested over two legs on December 1 and 5, with both matches originally scheduled for the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Mcurapo, Port-of-Spain.

It is a major opportunity not only for Club Sando, but for T&T football.

In simple terms, the Champions Cup is the club equivalent of the Concacaf Gold Cup. The Gold Cup brings together the region’s leading national teams. The Champions Cup does the same for clubs, featuring the best from Mexico, the United States, Canada, Central America and the Caribbean.

It is Concacaf’s premier men’s club competition. The 2027 edition will feature 27 teams and the eventual champion will qualify for the FIFA Club World Cup in 2029. The winner will also gain entry to the annual FIFA Intercontinental Cup.

That is the level Club Sando are attempting to reach. This is the level we as a country must always strive towards.

To get there, they must overcome Violette over 180 minutes. This is no ordinary third-place playoff where the teams are playing only for position. There is a Champions Cup place on the line. The Caribbean Cup finalists have already qualified, while the winner between Club Sando and Violette will claim the region’s third and final berth.

For a club from T&T, led by Angus Eve, former national captain and head coach, the value of that qualification would be difficult to overstate.

It would place Club Sando in the same competition as leading teams from Liga MX and Major League Soccer. Names such as Club América, Guadalajara, Pachuca, Tigres, Pumas and Toluca are already among those qualified or in the pathway for 2027.

It would bring a different level of exposure to the players, coaches, club and country. It could mean international broadcasts, wider media coverage and the chance for our footballers to perform in front of scouts, major corporate entities, brands and audiences they would not normally reach through domestic competition.

From 2027, Paramount+ will stream all 51 Champions Cup matches in the United States, while coverage across the region will also involve major broadcasters in Mexico, Canada, Central America, South America and the Caribbean.

The audience becomes much larger once a club enters the Champions Cup. The 2025 final between Cruz Azul and Vancouver Whitecaps attracted 906,000 viewers on Univision alone, making it the most-watched Champions Cup final in the network’s history. That represented a 67 per cent increase over the previous year.

We saw an even clearer example of the possibilities when Jamaica’s Cavalier faced Inter Miami in the Round of 16 of the 2025 Champions Cup.

More than 35,000 spectators packed Jamaica’s National Stadium to see an Inter Miami squad featuring Lionel Messi, Luis Suárez, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba. Messi came off the bench and scored as Miami won 2-0.

The match was carried internationally, including on ESPN in the Caribbean, FS2 in the United States and the Spanish-language platforms TUDN and ViX. Concacaf’s official YouTube highlights have since attracted more than 400,000 views, adding to the extensive international news and social-media coverage generated by the occasion.

The impact went well beyond the football. Jamaica’s tourism officials reported benefits for hotels, guest houses, restaurants, bars, transportation operators and local vendors. The country was placed in the international spotlight, while Cavalier benefited from gate receipts, increased sponsorship attention and the opportunity to showcase its players to a far wider audience.

Cavalier’s chairman later described the commercial impact for the club and its partners as significant. He also spoke about reinvesting the gains from the Champions Cup run into developing players and strengthening the club.

That is what these competitions can provide when the opportunity is properly understood and supported.

Let us be clear: qualification would not guarantee that Club Sando will face Inter Miami or that Messi will appear in T&T next year. The draw would have to bring such clubs together and, even then, there is never certainty over the availability of any individual player. But the possibility would be there.

Without reaching the Champions Cup, there is no possibility at all of hosting clubs and players of that standing in a competitive match. Once Club Sando gets there, the door opens. It could be Inter Miami, Club América, Guadalajara, Tigres or another major club from the region coming to Port of Spain.

This is also why the Hasely Crawford Stadium matters. Planning for an international competition of this nature is not done a few days before a match. Arrangements involving venues, security, broadcast operations, team movements, accommodation, training, ticketing and match organisation begin months in advance. The Concacaf matchday contingent and broadcast team already has its systems in place from preceding matches played this year.

Hasely Crawford Stadium is the country’s premier football venue and one of our leading sporting facilities. For an occasion carrying this level of importance, it is exactly the type of venue that should be available and used.

It is important to understand that when a national team or club appears in a Concacaf competition, the stadium, broadcast and overall presentation all become part of how our football is viewed outside our borders.

Club Sando’s run should therefore receive far greater attention and support.

The club finished second in its Caribbean Cup group and reached the semifinals in its first appearance in the competition. It earned a 1-1 draw with defending champion Mount Pleasant in the opening leg before going out 3-1 on aggregate.

Now there is one final opportunity.

Success would not solve everything in local football but it would give the domestic game something positive and tangible. It would show young players that there is a pathway from local club football to the highest level of competition in Concacaf. It would give sponsors greater reason to invest and supporters something meaningful to rally around.

Most importantly, Club Sando would not be entering the Champions Cup for themselves alone. They would be carrying the flag of T&T.

When one of our clubs reaches this stage, every possible effort should be made to support it. The opportunity is too valuable and the potential benefits too important to treat it as just another fixture.

It is important that we recognise the significance of this moment and ensure Club Sando is given the stage and support such an occasion deserves.