Yorke ready to shed blood for Warriors

In the history-making contest, the TT team will face not only a more confident Bahrain team, but also 28,000 partisan Bahrainis who will be admitted to the stadium free of charge. The TT posse is a small 200 which arrived with the Angostura team on Sunday, fortified with the Laventille Rhythm Section and the Woodbrook Playboyz Steelband.

Yorke, the former Manchester United star, said it has taken 16 years for the national team to get on the brink of the world’s greatest football stage and he was not about to give up the opportunity to realise a life-long dream.

Yorke was speaking to the media dominated by newspaper, television and radio reporters, and cameramen from his home country after a training session under floodlights on the training field adjacent to the national stadium here.

Trinidad and Tobago, fourth placed in Concacaf Zone qualifying, meet Bahrain tomorrow in the second leg of a two-match play-off to secure a spot in the 32-team Germany finals.

Either team will make world football history as the smallest country to reach the World Cup Finals in Germany, and it will also mark the first time for either in the quadrennial football fest.

Yesterday, Yorke, who now plays for Sydney FC in the Australian league after winning European and domestic championships with Manchester United, admitted that this will be his final chance to play in a World Cup. "It’s no secret that this could be the biggest match of my career which is in the twilight stage. But we know what must be done to win. We know we can do it," said Yorke.

The Tobago-born player said the team had analysed its performance against Bahrain on Saturday which ended in a 1-1 draw at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Mucurapo, and were now prepared to take their game up a notch.

"We must stay focussed, count on the support from our fans and play at a maximum level. At the end of the 90 minutes if we don’t get a result, we go into extra-time and if there is no winner we go into penalties," said Yorke. He said that the ideal result would be 2-0 in favour of the Warriors, but called for patience, saying that coach Leo Beenhakker had done his homework and knows exactly what strategy he must employ to finish the Journey to Germany campaign on a high note.

After conducting an intense evening session with his players, Beenhakker appeared particularly pensive walking around in deep thought before speaking to the media. He discounted any notion that he felt that the home support will play a significant role for the Bahrain team and the popular perception that Trinidad and Tobago are at a disadvantage thousands of kilometres away from home.

He likened the situation to cricketers who have to play for long periods away from home but still manage to win. Beenhakker said any professional who is intimidated playing away is probably not ready for the international stage.

"This is what the game is all about and the players have been dreaming of it since they were small boys," said the Dutchman who took the Netherlands to the World Cup finals in Italy in 1990.

He said he does not expect the Warriors to have any difficulty with playing two matches in five days since it’s their job to play football and pointed out that while he was at Real Madrid in Spain, his team once played four matches in seven days.

Beenhakker also admits to relishing the opportunity of returning to the World Cup finals as for him the two greatest events a coach or an athlete dreams of participating in are the World Cup finals and the Olympic Games.

Yesterday’s late training session was witnessed by scores of Trinidad and Tobago fans who travelled on the special charter to Bahrain including the Laventille Rhythm Section and the Angostura Woodbrook Playboyz Steelband.

There was, however, an injury scare in the Trinidad and Tobago camp yesterday when impressive midfielder Aurtis Whitley reported a sore calf in his right leg and received treatment.

However, he is expected to be fit to take his place in the starting line-up tomorrow night. Beenhakker said he has planned another two sessions today for the national team.