Last week, Trinidad and To­ba­go—and the wider foot­balling world—lost a gi­ant. Leo Been­hakker, the leg­endary Dutch coach who led our So­ca War­riors to the 2006 FI­FA World Cup, passed away at the age of 82. For many, he was the man who changed the course of our foot­balling his­to­ry. For me, he was a fig­ure who left a last­ing im­pres­sion—pro­fes­sion­al­ly and per­son­al­ly.

I was 24 years old when Leo ar­rived in Port of Spain, flanked by his trust­ed com­pa­tri­ots Wim Ri­js­ber­gen and Theo De Jong, along with new man­ag­er Bruce Aa­nensen. Trinidad and To­ba­go had just one point from three match­es in our World Cup qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign. Some­thing had to give—and it did. The pow­ers that be made a bold move: they brought in Leo.

From his very first meet­ing, there was a shift. He car­ried an au­ra that de­mand­ed re­spect with­out ever need­ing to raise his voice. His pres­ence alone made peo­ple sit up straighter, lis­ten more close­ly, and be­lieve a lit­tle more. He didn’t just coach foot­ball—he coached peo­ple. Play­ers, staff, ad­min­is­tra­tors—every­one around him grew un­der his lead­er­ship.

Leo brought with him a very Dutch ap­proach—di­rect, prag­mat­ic, and no-non­sense. The Dutch are known for their hon­esty, their struc­ture, and their com­mit­ment to do­ing things the right way. Leo em­bod­ied all of that. He was me­thod­i­cal, fo­cused, and bru­tal­ly hon­est when need­ed, but nev­er dis­re­spect­ful. You al­ways knew where you stood with him, and that kind of clar­i­ty was re­fresh­ing and, in many ways, em­pow­er­ing.

As a young press of­fi­cer, I found my­self soak­ing in every­thing. He taught us lessons that ex­tend­ed far be­yond tac­tics and train­ing. Leo was a mas­ter of man man­age­ment. He be­lieved in the pow­er of con­fi­dence and clar­i­ty. He showed me what it tru­ly meant to be a press of­fi­cer—not just some­one man­ag­ing in­ter­views and lo­gis­tics, but some­one who was a cus­to­di­an of the team’s im­age, en­er­gy, and uni­ty. He taught me how to think strate­gi­cal­ly, how to act in the best in­ter­est of the team and the na­tion, and how to stay two steps ahead in the me­dia game.

I was younger then, still find­ing my way, but many of the lessons I learnt from him and from the World Cup 2006 ex­pe­ri­ence on­ly grew in val­ue over time. In those ear­ly days of 2005 and 2006, Leo be­gan to re­ly on me more and more for in­for­ma­tion and press man­age­ment. I’ll nev­er for­get our 1-0 win away to Pana­ma, just be­fore the icon­ic 2-1 vic­to­ry over Mex­i­co that se­cured our play­off spot. The in­ter­net sig­nal at the Pana­ma sta­di­um was weak, and Leo de­pend­ed on me for re­al-time up­dates on scores from oth­er match­es be­ing played si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly.

In the fi­nal min­utes, with the pres­sure mount­ing, I mo­men­tar­i­ly lost con­nec­tion—and couldn’t get up­dates to him. Af­ter the match, he came to me, firm and clear: “Nev­er switch off again. Not even for a sec­ond.” That mo­ment stuck with me. It was clas­sic Leo: fo­cused, de­mand­ing, and al­ways think­ing about every de­tail that could give us the edge.

When our re­la­tion­ship rekin­dled in 2013, af­ter he re­turned as an ad­vi­sor for the Gold Cup squad, the mu­tu­al trust had grown deep­er. By then, I had ma­tured pro­fes­sion­al­ly, and he en­trust­ed me as his go-to man for every bit of in­for­ma­tion—on the play­ers, the staff, and the in­ner work­ings of the ad­min­is­tra­tion. Whether it was an ur­gent query about a team mat­ter or a per­son­al re­quest, like track­ing down his pre­ferred cig­ars in Mi­a­mi or Port-of-Spain, Leo knew he could count on me.

What al­ways im­pressed me was that he nev­er lost tabs on his 2006 squad. Years had passed, but he would still ask about the play­ers, their lives, and their ca­reers—he tru­ly cared. It wasn’t just about re­sults for Leo; it was about peo­ple, about con­nec­tion, and about lega­cy.

Leo had a way of bring­ing out the best in you. He was firm, yes—di­rect, de­ci­sive, and nev­er one to mince words. But he was al­so a gen­tle­man. Un­der­neath the steely re­solve was some­one who tru­ly cared. He un­der­stood the hu­man side of foot­ball. He made you feel seen, heard, and im­por­tant—no mat­ter your role.

To­day, four of us from that his­toric 2006 World Cup cam­paign are still proud­ly con­tribut­ing to the on­go­ing ef­forts of the na­tion­al team. Along­side my­self, Physio Oba Gul­ston, Dwight Yorke, and Rus­sell Lat­apy con­tin­ue to sup­port the de­vel­op­ment of our foot­ball in var­i­ous ways, while An­ton Corneal now serves as Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor of the TTFA. That lega­cy Leo helped build is still alive—and still work­ing for the red, white and black.

Look­ing back, I re­alise how much of my pro­fes­sion­al ap­proach to­day was shaped by those days un­der Leo’s guid­ance. He didn’t just leave a mark on Trinidad and To­ba­go foot­ball—he left a mark on all of us who had the priv­i­lege of work­ing with him.

Rest in peace, Leo. Thank you for the lessons, the be­lief, and the lega­cy. You were more than a coach—you were a teacher, a leader, and a true foot­balling states­man.

Ed­i­tor's note

Shaun Fuentes is the head of TTFA Me­dia and mar­ket­ing. He was a FI­FA Me­dia Of­fi­cer at the 2010 FI­FA World Cup in South Africa and 2013 FI­FA U-20 World Cup in Turkey. He has trav­eled to 88 coun­tries dur­ing his jour­ney in sport. The views ex­pressed are sole­ly his and not a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of any or­gan­i­sa­tion. shaunfuentes@ya­hoo.com