T&T’s Top Five World Cup Moments

April 4th, 2006 | by: Stacy-Marie Ishmael | Comments(2)

The T&T blog is finally jumping on the bandwagon and providing the definitive Top 5 T&T World Cup Moments to date.

Special thanks to all the proud T&T supporters over at the Soca Warriors Football Forum who contributed their recollections.

In no particular order:

– Chris Birchall’s stunner against Bahrain – As Marcos said on the forum, “Everybody head was dong before dat, doh forget.” True indeed.

- USA’s Paul Calgiuri’s goal on November 19th 1989 – This was the goal that deprived T&T of what should have been our first World Cup appearance (Italy in 1990). The team – the Strike Squad, as they were then known – needed only a draw to advance. The nation was heartbroken: big men held their heads and bawled.

- Kelvin Jack’s last minute save against Bahrain – Dennis Lawrence had scored his bullet to put us one up, but in the dying seconds of the game it was Kelvin Jack who denied the Bahrainis’ efforts. Amen.

- The arrival of Beenhakker – Respect to the Dutchman who took over from Bertille St. Clair as the T&T coach in April 2005. He turned the team around, salvaged what had up till then been a disastrous campaign – and led us straight to our very first World Cup.

- Beating Mexico 2-1 in October 2005 – T&T had lost our previous encounter to Mexico 2-0. If we won this game, we would qualify for the playoff against Bahrain – and potentially, Germany. If we didn’t, it would bring our World Cup campaign to a sad end. As forum regular Pointman recalled, “[I was] unable to watch the game live, and [had to be] texted the highlights/lowlights…Imagine the emotional rollercoaster one goes thru reading “Stern miss penalty” “ah want to kill him” “Mexico scores” then “Stern scores” and “Stern scores again” “game done, Trini win” and bawling like ah madman.”