An un­for­get­table high point, not just in sports but in the his­to­ry of T&T, was that mo­ment in No­vem­ber 2005 when a Den­nis Lawrence head­er sent this na­tion in­to the 2006 World Cup in Ger­many.

Cel­e­bra­tions erupt­ed na­tion­wide, with ju­bi­lant cit­i­zens danc­ing in the streets and wav­ing na­tion­al flags along­side mu­sic trucks, steel­bands and rhythm sec­tions. A pub­lic hol­i­day was de­clared.

In a feat that has nev­er been achieved by any po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ty, there was a sea­son of gen­uine na­tion­al uni­ty in­spired by the suc­cess of the se­nior men’s foot­ball team- the So­ca War­riors.

Mem­o­ries of the time were re­vived over the past few days with news of the pass­ing of the man who guid­ed T&T to the World Cup, Leo Been­hakker, who served as head coach from May 2005 to Ju­ly 2006.

The Dutch­man’s suc­cess made T&T on­ly the sec­ond Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean na­tion to qual­i­fy for the tour­na­ment.

Twice be­fore, this coun­try came tan­ta­lis­ing­ly close to earn­ing a World Cup berth — first in 1974 with a team that in­clud­ed the leg­endary Ever­ald “Gal­ly” Cum­mings, and again in No­vem­ber 1989 when the Italy World Cup cam­paign came to a heart­break­ing end at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um with a 1-0 de­feat.

Adding to the agony of that loss was the fact that the team had need­ed on­ly a draw to qual­i­fy.

The pain of those loss­es was erased and his­to­ry was made in a game played thou­sands of miles away in Man­a­ma, Bahrain, thanks to the as­tute guid­ance of Been­hakker, a coach who al­ready had an im­pres­sive track record when he ac­cept­ed the chal­lenge of man­ag­ing the So­ca War­riors.

He had led Ajax to two Dutch league ti­tles, then guid­ed Re­al Madrid to three La Liga ti­tles in a row from 1986.

When his stint with the So­ca War­riors end­ed, Been­hakker went on to guide the World Cup cam­paigns of the Sau­di Ara­bia and Poland na­tion­al teams.

His ster­ling con­tri­bu­tion to the ad­vance­ment of foot­ball in this coun­try was ac­knowl­edged by the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, which hailed him as “a vi­sion­ary leader, a men­tor, and above all, a be­liev­er” who joined the World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion cam­paign in its fi­nal stretch, “walked in­to a dream many thought un­reach­able — and turned it in­to a liv­ing re­al­i­ty.”

In 2006, Been­hakker re­ceived the coun­try's sec­ond-high­est ho­n­our - the Cha­co­nia Medal Gold.

Sad­ly, since Been­hakker's brief but mem­o­rable tenure with the se­nior men’s team some two decades ago, a sec­ond trip to the World Cup has once again be­come an elu­sive goal.

Lawrence, the 6 ft 7 inch­es tall cen­tre-back, whose goal se­cured the team’s spot in Ger­many 2006, was un­able to repli­cate Been­hakker’s suc­cess dur­ing his heav­i­ly-crit­i­cised stint as coach of the na­tion­al team from 2017 to 2019.

A new TTFA ex­ec­u­tive, in­stalled just a year ago, has hired Dwight Yorke, the leg­endary T&T and Man­ches­ter Unit­ed strik­er and the cap­tain of the 2006 team, in the quest for a spot in the 2026 World Cup.

How­ev­er, it is still ear­ly days as the first leg of the cam­paign has so far yield­ed on­ly a 2-2 draw with Grena­da and a 7-1 vic­to­ry over the Ba­hamas. Still ahead is the sec­ond round of qual­i­fi­ca­tion where the team needs to score wins against St Kitts and Nevis and Cos­ta Ri­ca for any chance of ad­vanc­ing to the third round of qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

Time will tell whether Yorke can fol­low in the foot­steps of his for­mer coach and lead T&T to its sec­ond World Cup.