Trinidad and Tobago national football coach Leo Beenhakker has expressed satisfaction with the "Warriors" performance in their 2-1 triumph over Mexico in their final round CONCACAF World Cup qualifier at the Hasely Crawford Stadium on Wednesday night.
The victory puts T&T in fourth spot in the CONCACAF qualifying standings and the national team now face a home and away playoff next month with the fifth-place Asian Zone country, Bahrain, for a berth at the 2006 World Cup.
And although the Dutchman remained typically composed following his team's latest win against the top CONCACAF team, Beenhakker was notably much happier with the Warriors' performance on the night.
"You also saw the game, no?" Beenhakker told the media following the match. "I think everyone can be happy with it. We played against one of the best teams of the world. And they still are. And I think it was in our possibilities. We played a great match, especially first half. First half hour we didn't give a chance to them. And we had the whole match in our hands.
"It was a difficult moment when Stern (John) missed the penalty, but after that the team again played with a lot of courage, and I think at the end we beat a great team, a great opponent, and we deserved the victory."
The T&T coach also revealed that now that this part of the journey is over, he and the rest of his staff already have their sights set on Bahrain.
"What can I say? I know we have two more games to play," Beenhakker said. "Yeah, well, first I think we have the right to be happy about this victory and we know that Bahrain is our next opponent, and from tomorrow morning we will start thinking about it.
"At least we have one of the coaches over there from Holland," the T&T coach continued, "and he saw both matches, so in that way we are very well prepared. We know who Bahrain is and we know who the players are. We will get information about all that, so from tomorrow we will start thinking about it.
"We have a few weeks and, as you know, everybody will go to his club tomorrow morning and I will see the guys again four days before the next match. So that's the situation we are in."
T&T captain Dwight Yorke was also elated with the victory, but although he felt the public should celebrate, he warned that the team still has some way to go to qualify.
"There's no question that this was a fantastic result for us," the Sydney FC striker remarked. "We set out pretty much to score an early goal, and again this is a fantastic result and everyone should be happy because we know that the job is not complete yet.
"We put ourselves in a fantastic position," Yorke added, "and by completing the job tonight, we have a couple of games ahead of us and again I keep saying let's not get ahead of our time. But we should enjoy the occasion which is a special occasion for everybody."
T&T striker Stern John, who scored both goals to lift the Warriors to victory, acknowledged he has now surpassed Steve David's World Cup qualifying goalscoring record (16 goals) for the national team with 18, but said the most important goal right now is qualifying.
"It's always good to score goals," John added. "I did not really set out to break his record, it's just good to score today and get the victory for the team. I think along the way if I break records and stuff it's an added bonus, but the main thing is to qualify for the World Cup.
"That's just a notch under my belt, but that's not really the important thing right now. That's a personal thing, but football is a team game. And I'm very happy for the victory today."
And Yorke had a message for all the fans who supported the Warriors on Wednesday.
"The message from me and the message from the players is that 'keep the faith'. We're headed in the right direction, but again let's not get ahead of ourselves. We know that there's two games remaining. Tonight is a fantastic result and quite rightly so.
"Everybody should enjoy it and enjoy the occasion, but then back to the drawing board in less than a month's time, and then see where we go from there," Yorke concluded.