At the end of the day, Leo Beenhakker was at his functional best.

Sadly, the Dutchman, somehow, did not leave room for magic and mystique that the midfield general, Russell Latapy would delivered on the big stage.

Ten thousand Trinidadians, including captain Dwight Yorke, and many thousands of Scotsmen also, could not be wrong.

As I watched on the sidelines and believed that Beenhakker’s 42 years in coaching gave him an unlimited hot line to the Almighty, the big question remained how come he, in the heat of battle, sent out mere .38 Specials and .45s when he had an AK- 47 sitting on the bench.

It continues to defy logic, especially after Latapy lit up the field in a way that only the true football fans in TnT would have understood.

For weeks I’ve heard excuses from all kinds of people: Russell smokes too many cigarettes and he’s too old.

From the coach came the remarks that Latapy’s an attacking player and not the kind who will get the ball back; before that he suggested there would be an imbalance in playing both Russell and Dwight at the same time.

But you can never rationalise the mystique and that is the mistake that Beenhakker made when he chose not to use Latapy even in the last 25 minutes of the game against England, which was even more crucial than the last match against Paraguay.

What would it have cost him?

Is it too late to ask?

Going into the tournament, the master Duitch tactician, had the odds stacked against him.

RUSSELL LATAPY ...
opened the road
to Germany.

LEO BEENHAKKER

DWIGHT YORKE

“I don’t know how my guys will react to the pressure yet.

“Only Dwight Yorke has experienced anything like this but I hope Sweden are assuming they’ll win.

“But we are still confident. Any positive result in this tournament would represent a fantastic success,” he noted.

Yeah, we know all that stuff about minnows and the fact that he’s got a man from Jabloteh matching up to the best in the world and that he obviously inspired the players to believe that they can do anything, once the focus is football.

Much thanks, Brainhacker, as I have renamed the Dutchman.

But then there are some issues that are still stuck in my craw, which even the football pundits cannot explain to me.

How come, in all the experimenting with several striking options on the bench, the coach decided that Stern John was a given for all three games, even though he failed miserably to finish.

Does Stern have the mental mettle necessary for the international game?

What was so special about Kelvin Jack that he had to be given a bligh?

In fact, Britain’s Independent newspaper -- which has no reason for sour grapes, which some local fans will be accused of if they make the comment -- noted that Beenhakker’s decision to recall Kelvin Jack in goal, instead of the capable Shaka Hislop, proved to be an error.

He saved smartly from Roque Santa Cruz’s header inside the first five minutes, but then appeared hesitant and eminently beatable, often rushing from his goal unconvincingly or pushing shots from distance back into his own area.

What class of man is Jack that Beenhakker could not have seen before?

Look how out of character he was, when in the over-anxiety to get on the stage as he waited in the tunnel with the rest of his team, Jack grabbed the ball from the hands of one of the officials just to get a feel before he went out to play.

The Independent continues: “Paraguay, with Dos Santos and Paredes in particular, reminded TnT of the threat they could create before Beenhakker finally introduced Russell Latapy for his first appearance of the competition.

“The 37-year-old made a difference. Immediately he set up Yorke, but his shot flew over, and then he met Kenwyne Jones’ knock-down with a fierce half-volley which only just cleared the bar. It would have been a wonderful ending, but TnT were tiring badly and then Paraguay broke away and scored a fine goal.”

With that, the fairytale was over.

Few people will recall that this team started a new journey, literally, when Russell Latapy answered the call to return home and he made an immediate impact with his first game, which was the first win in an otherwise dry qualifying campaign.

And how he was the inspirational leader, as told by Chris Birchall, who gelled into the team on Latapy’s return.

Ask him if you think that I lie?

And who coined the phrase and the feeling of “vibes it up?”

Eh?

Ask Dennis Lawrence about that!

“We had possibilities but scoring is our problem,” Beenhakker said after the last game.

Sadly he will be remembered for taking three countries to the World Cup -- his native Holland, Saudi Arabia and Trinidad -- never to win a game.

“We played with courage, with confidence.

“We didn’t want to go home now. But we have to and leave with pride,” Beenhakker said after the game.

“It was an open game and we had some chances, but that’s football. If you don’t put away the chances you create, the opposition deserve the win. I didn’t like the way we performed in the first half, when we had a few problems in defence,” he noted.

“Clearly the team had some problems with their finishing, but you have to bear in mind that before the tournament started, people back in Trinidad and Tobago were expecting us to lose 6-0 or 8-0 against Sweden and England.

“For that reason, I’m disappointed to be out of the competition so soon, but I’m very satisfied with the effort my players put in.

“I can’t blame them, because they played with pride and passion.

“This was the first time that the team has played in a World Cup, and we’ve learned some great lessons. The next time, they should have more confidence. This experience will help to develop football in Trinidad and Tobago,” the coach concluded.

Maybe we will never know what happened and why we think that Latas was given a raw deal.

However, the word coming out of the camp on Wednesday morning is that the men are together and there are no regrets.

There’s no division or rift and that Beenhakker and Latapy shook hands.

And that was meant to put to rest rumours that the “Brain” had a beef with Latas because he often did not play according to the coach’s book.

There is no doubt the Little Magician -- the ultimate Trini-style footballer -- would have learnt a lot from his coach, as the player/coach at Falkirk will move on to new heights in his career.

None of us will ever remember the dying moments of the 2006 World Cup campaign, when the Little Magician lit up our hearts and left us inspired … for a lifetime, I daresay.