Trinidad and Tobago’s ‘Soca Warriors’ have beaten Bahrain 1-0 to qualify for their first ever World Cup Finals with a 2-1 aggregate win. Coach Leo Beenhakker’s T&T ‘Warriors’ knew that they had to score to have any chance of making it to the World Cup finals in Germany next Summer, and started off the game brightly, passing well and showing their attacking intent.

The home side had a reminder for the visitors in the 8th minute when Dundee United’s keeper Kelvin Jack had his hands stung from a speculative, but hugely powerful long-range shot, that was put out for a corner for Bahrain.

The scorer of the equaliser in the first-leg, Port Vale’s Chris Birchall, having received an injury in the 12th minute after having been caught after taking a shot, was forced to retire in the 22nd minute, to be replaced by Silvio Spann.

Hussein Ali Baba, without doubt Bahrain’s most effective player, made a wonderful defensive lunge to block Southampton FC’s Kenwyn Jones’ goal bound strike, as the visitors continued their pressure on the Bahrain goal. Minutes later Stern John was denied by Bahrain’s keeper Hassan Ali, who came out quickly from his goal-line to bravely parry his shot away.

With veteran captain Dwight Yorke now 34 years old, he knew that this was his last opportunity to make it to the World Cup, and was eager to keep the pace of the game high, and maintain the dominance that T&T were enjoying. Unfortunately the final ball was often lacking, and the Bahrain keeper had a few easy plucks from the air to deny the visitors.

The home side though, looked like they hadn’t even turned up for the match, and one couldn’t help thinking that they felt secure in the knowledge that 0-0 was sufficient for them to qualify, and were happy with that, with every attempt from Bahrain being speculative, long-range efforts.

Nonetheless, even with the almost constant pressure from the visitors, the game went into half-time 0-0.

The second half saw the same dominance from the visitors, and Trinidad and Tobago finally broke the deadlock in the 48th minute, with the 6’6” Wrexham defender Dennis Lawrence finding space from a corner, and scoring with a superb downward header to put the Warriors ahead.

Bahrain’s best attempt of the game thus far was when Marvin Andrews left his leg out for a free-kick for the home side which was taken by Hussein Ali, and the resulting shot almost crept into the corner of the T&T net, although it seemed that Kelvin Jack had the post covered.

This led to a flurry of Bahrain free kicks, with the home side coming close, but Jack marshalling his goal well.

Bahrain were beginning to come into the game now, with some passing movement, but the final ball was lacking, and still the attacking initiative was with the Warriors, who were looking for a second goal to seal the game.

In the 76th minute the goal scorer Dennis Lawrence almost scored an own goal, which re-awakened the visitors into action, and coach Leo Beenhakker brought on Trinidad and Tobago veteran Russel Latapy, who almost had immediate effect, striking the crossbar with his first touch, and almost scorinmg from the follow up.

The visitors continued in the same vein, and the home side’s frustrations grew until in the final minutes of play, when tempers began to fray, and the Bahraini players began to lose the plot en-masse, even manhandling the referee after the home side felt they had a perfectly legal goal disallowed after the ball was ‘nicked’ from the goalkeeper as he was taking a kick.

This was not the end of it, in the final seconds of the game, T&T’s keeper Jack was the saviour, when he tipped over a last gasp shot from the home side, saving the Caribbean Islanders blushes for a fabulous win.

Russel Latapy, the “Mini Magician” as he is known to the supporters of his club team Falkirk, was in the squad along with Dwight Yorke back in 1989, when Trinidad and Tobago were denied a place in Italia 90, and only needed a draw to qualify, but were beaten by the USA 1-0. The beauty of these two players being on the pitch at full time was a special moment for the two veteran stalwarts, who will relish the prospect of starring in the World Cup Finals in Germany next June.

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