‘It is Not about Winning or Losing” CONCACAF President on Belize Youth National Teams

Victor Montagliani

CONCACAF President Victor Montagliani also responded to requests for his thoughts on Belize’s youth national teams performances in regional tournaments. Of recent, a couple youth national teams have attracted criticism from Belizeans after numerous defeats in regional tournaments. Well, the CONCACAF President says, there are more important things than winning at the youth level.

Victor Montagliani, President, CONCACAF

“First of all, you shouldn’t give a damn about winning at the youth level, you should never care about that ever and staying home would you just leave your child at home to watch TV or are you going to send them to school? Football is education. It is not about winning and losing. It is not even about that sometimes at the professional level. It is about survival sometimes at the professional level. It is not even about winning. Very few teams in the world really go, very few. But at the youth level it is about the education of the player, the education of the human being, and if you think not going out and experiencing other teams and cultures is not education I have something for you. Keeping them at home would be useless. You would go backwards not forwards. Now, do you need to do stuff at home? Yeah, that is why they are investing in coaching education to make coaches betters, the standards I talk about that has to be set internally that has to be done internally, but in the end you need the international experiences, the experience in UNCAF. Those are all experiences that will make individual grow. That they tie one-one or lose seven one, that doesn’t matter. At the youth level it doesn’t matter.”