Trinidad and Tobago coach Leo Beenhakker hailed his side's qualification for the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™ as one of the highlights of his lengthy career.
The Dutchman guided his side to a 2-1 aggregate win over Bahrain, their 1-0 victory in Manama on Wednesday evening securing their passage to Germany 2006 - and a place at the finals for the first time ever.
Trinidad finished fourth in the CONCACAF final qualifying group to enter into the play-off against Bahrain. They did so despite a dreadful start to qualifying that saw them amass just one point from the opening three games.
But, with Beenhakker's arrival in place of Bertille St Clair, the team's fortunes took a turn for the better, culminating in the their first berth on the world stage. "If you work 40 years in football you have several highlights and this was, of course, one of them," said Beenhakker.
"When we started in May after three matches the team only had one point and nobody gave us a chance. In the qualifying matches it went better and better and this, of course, is the result.
With Bahrain securing an away goal in the first leg in Port of Spain on Saturday, T&T went into the second leg knowing they needed to score to have any chance of progressing. Four minutes after half-time that vital goal came, towering defender Dennis Lawrence meeting Dwight Yorke's corner powerfully to score past Ali Hassan and force the home side to open up and chase a goal of their own.
Despite several near-misses, Bahrain could not find the answer to prevent the Caribbean islanders qualifying for Germany. "First of all we are very happy that we did it," said Beenhakker. "I have to say what I said before playing the two matches that Bahrain was a tough opponent for us.
"They did a very good job in the first match in Trinidad and Tobago. I think we had, here, a good first half-hour. After that we made the same mistake as in Trinidad that we forgot to play football. We scored a good goal, a wonderful goal and after that it was a very nervous situation for the players.
"Most of them are not used to playing under such pressure but at the end we saved the result and you can imagine that everybody is unbelievably happy. It's the first time in history that this country will be represented in the World Cup, so I suppose it will be a one-week carnival in Trinidad and Tobago."
Bahrain coach Luka Peruzovic was dejected in defeat, believing his team missed out on qualifying by the narrowest of margins. "They pushed us but this is not the reason we lost or we are out," said the naturalised Belgian, who took over as Bahrain coach in August.
"We knew before the match it would be tough and only one detail can make a difference. But I knew it and I said before that in this kind of match little things make a difference."