Trinidad and Tobago stood one win away from joining the other 31 teams already qualified at the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany. The 1-1 draw in the first leg of the playoff gave Bahrain the luxury of playing a waiting game in front of their home crowd.

The Soca Warriors dominated the game early, winning much of the possessions. The first shot-on-goal came 13 minutes in by Christopher Birchall (T&T's first white player in 60 years), who was injured on the play and had to be replaced by Silvio Spann. The best chance of the half came from Stern John who collected the ball inside the box past the defense but was quickly smothered by the keeper (Hussein Ali Hassan).

The opening goal came early in the second half when Dennis Lawrence headed in a corner cross from wight Yorke in the 49th minute.

Both teams exchanged several scoring chances late in the half. Bahrain's Ahmed Hassan hit the side-netting off a free-kick in the 62nd and T&T almost put in an insurance marker shortly after Russell Latapy came on in the 75th minute but hit the crossbar.

Tempers began to flare in the closing minutes as T&T kept playing the ball near Bahrain corner post to waste time on the clock and Latapy was given a yellow card for delaying the game.

Late into stoppage time, T&T keeper (Kelvin Jack) was stripped of the ball, which was tapped in for what seemed to be the equalizer. The goal was quickly waved off by the referee as an illegal tackle by Hussain Ali Baba (who was red-carded shortly after for making contact with the referee) and the Soca Warriors held on for the win.

The victory give Trinidad & Tobago a place in the history books and its first ever berth in a World Cup final. The Soca Warriors are only the second Caribbean team to make the trip. The first was Jamaica, who qualified in the 1998 finals.

 

::Full List of World Cup 2006 Qualified Teams::

North, Central American & Caribbean Zone
- USA (USA)
- Mexico (MEX)
- Costa Rica (CRC)
- Trinidad & Tobago (TRI)

South American Zone
- Argentina (ARG)
- Brazil (BRA)
- Ecuador (ECU)
- Paraguay (PAR)

European Zone
- Germany (GER)
- Ukraine (UKR)
- Netherlands (NED)
- Poland (POL)
- England (ENG)
- Croatia (CRO)
- Italy (ITA)
- Portugal (POR)
- Sweden (SWE)
- Serbia & Montenegro (SCG)
- France (FRA)

African Zone
- Angola (ANG)
- Cote d'Ivoire (CIV)
- Togo (TOG)
- Ghana (GHA)
- Tunisia (TUN)

Asian Zone
- Japan (JPN)
- Iran (IRN)
- Korea Republic (KOR)
- Saudi Arabia (KSA)

Oceanian Zone
- Australia (AUS)