The Hindu : Sport / Football : Trinidad and Tobago creates World Cup history

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Friday, Nov 18, 2005

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Trinidad and Tobago creates World Cup history

LONDON: Trinidad and Tobago, Spain, the Czech Republic and Switzerland joined Australia in advancing to the next year's World Cup Finals on Wednesday.

All 32 entrants in the December 9 tournament draw in Leipzig, Germany, have now been decided.

Trinidad and Tobago qualified for the first time, beating Bahrain 1-0 and advancing with a 2-1 aggregate win.

Lawrence scores

Dennis Lawrence scored the only goal in the 49th minute with a header off a cross from Dwight Yorke.

The teams drew 1-1 Saturday in the first leg of the playoff series.

Trinidad will be the least populated country at next year's World Cup Finals in Germany. The Caribbean country has a population of about 1.3 million.

Previously, the closest Trinidad came to qualifying was for the 1990 tournament. Needing a draw at home in its final game, the `Soca Warriors' lost 1-0 to the United States, which then qualified for the event for the first time since 1950.

Celebration

Trinidadians clad in their national colours — red, white and black — took to the streets of Port-of-Spain jumping and screaming, while others cried over their first entry to the World Cup Finals.

Yorke isn't dreaming any more. "We have to keep believing in our chances. There's no reason we shouldn't put ourselves in a position to reach our goal," Yorke, who has been playing top-flight soccer in England for 15 years, had said in the build-up to the game.

"If you work 40 years in football, you have several highlights and this was one of them," Trinidad's Dutch coach Leo Beenhakker said."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."

Already leading 5-1 from the home leg in Madrid, Spain tied 1-1 at Slovakia to advance 6-2 on aggregate.

The Czechs followed their first-leg victory in Oslo by beating Norway 1-0 for an overall 2-0 win.

Sanli's effort in vain

The Swiss, leading 2-0 from the first leg in Berne, had a scare in Istanbul, where Turkey won 4-2. Tuncay Sanli scored a hat trick and the teams tied 4-4 overall, but Switzerland advanced to the tournament in Germany having scored more away goals.

Spain wasn't troubled in Bratislava until Filip Holoski put Slovakia ahead seven minutes into the second half. However, David Villa extinguished the possibility of a comeback by equalizing with 20 minutes to go.

Tomas Rosicky put the Czech Republic ahead in Prague after 35 minutes, hitting Norway's chances of reversing Saturday's home defeat.

In Istanbul, forward Alex Frei gave Switzerland the lead with a first-minute penalty, but Tuncay hit back with two goals and Necati Ates scored a penalty to make it 3-1.

Marco Streller scored what turned out to be the deciding goal in the 84th minute, making it 3-2 and meaning Turkey, which reached the last World Cup semifinals three years ago, had to score two more goals.

Tuncay completed his hat trick, but the Swiss advanced.— AP

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