The world of foot­ball mourns the pass­ing of Leo "Don Leo" Been­hakker, a true glob­al am­bas­sador of the beau­ti­ful game — a Dutch­man whose pas­sion, in­tel­lect, and charis­ma left an in­deli­ble mark in every cor­ner of the foot­balling world. From the streets of Rot­ter­dam to the grand stages of Madrid and, most mem­o­rably, to the hearts of Trin­bag­o­ni­ans, his jour­ney was one of grace, grit, and ground­break­ing achieve­ment.

Born on Au­gust 2, 1942, in the Nether­lands, Been­hakker's play­ing ca­reer was main­ly lim­it­ed to lo­cal Dutch clubs. He tran­si­tioned to coach­ing ear­ly and quick­ly de­vel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion as a sharp tac­ti­cian and a charis­mat­ic leader. His coach­ing jour­ney be­gan in the Ere­di­visie, the Dutch top flight, be­fore blos­som­ing in­to a sto­ried, globe-span­ning ad­ven­ture.

Been­hakker's coach­ing ca­reer took off in the Nether­lands dur­ing the 1970s. He man­aged sev­er­al Dutch clubs, in­clud­ing Go Ahead Ea­gles and Feyeno­ord, but it was at Ajax and lat­er Re­al Madrid that he gained in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion. At Ajax, he con­tin­ued the tra­di­tion of Dutch at­tack­ing foot­ball and helped de­vel­op young tal­ents. His first spell at Re­al Madrid, start­ing in 1986, was par­tic­u­lar­ly fruit­ful. There, he won three con­sec­u­tive La Liga ti­tles (1987–1989), one Co­pa del Rey (1989), and one Span­ish Su­per Cup (1988). Been­hakker's Madrid side was packed with tal­ent and known for their flair, tac­ti­cal bal­ance, and con­sis­tent dom­i­nance in Span­ish foot­ball.

Apart from club foot­ball, Been­hakker al­so en­joyed mul­ti­ple stints in in­ter­na­tion­al man­age­ment. He led the Nether­lands na­tion­al team at the 1990 FI­FA World Cup and coached Sau­di Ara­bia and Poland. How­ev­er, ar­guably his most beloved and cul­tur­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant coach­ing ex­pe­ri­ence came in the Caribbean—with Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In 2005, the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (then Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion) ap­point­ed Been­hakker coach of the na­tion­al team dur­ing the lat­ter stages of the 2006 World Cup qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign. The So­ca War­riors strug­gled in the Con­ca­caf Hexag­o­nal and had lit­tle hope of qual­i­fy­ing. Been­hakker brought calm pro­fes­sion­al­ism and a new tac­ti­cal dis­ci­pline to the side, quick­ly earn­ing the re­spect of play­ers and fans alike.

Un­der his lead­er­ship, T&T adopt­ed a more struc­tured and de­fen­sive style while still us­ing the flair and speed of play­ers like Dwight Yorke, Stern John, and Rus­sell Lat­apy to good ef­fect. Been­hakker's guid­ance was in­stru­men­tal in help­ing the team fin­ish fourth in the Con­ca­caf fi­nal round, earn­ing them a spot in an in­ter­con­ti­nen­tal play­off against Bahrain.

Af­ter a tense two-leg tie — a 1-1 draw in Port-of-Spain, T&T, and a 1-0 away win in Man­a­ma, Bahrain — T&T se­cured their first-ever spot at a FI­FA World Cup. The cel­e­bra­tions in T&T — echoed by joy­ful cheers across the Caribbean and ad­mired world­wide — were a pow­er­ful tes­ta­ment to the uni­fy­ing mag­ic of foot­ball as the na­tion proud­ly se­cured its his­toric qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the 2006 World Cup. Been­hakker be­came a na­tion­al hero overnight. Been­hakker was cred­it­ed with in­still­ing be­lief, dis­ci­pline, and tac­ti­cal aware­ness in­to a squad long con­sid­ered un­der­dogs.

At the 2006 World Cup in Ger­many, T&T were placed in Group B along­side Eng­land, Swe­den and Paraguay. De­spite be­ing the small­est na­tion ever to qual­i­fy for the tour­na­ment, they im­pressed the world by hold­ing Swe­den to a goal­less draw in their open­ing match — a re­sult achieved de­spite be­ing re­duced to ten men. Though they lost their next two games, the team left Ger­many with their heads held high, hav­ing earned glob­al re­spect for their ef­fort, or­gan­i­sa­tion, and heart.

Leo Been­hakker's lega­cy with T&T re­mains a shin­ing ex­am­ple of what foot­ball can mean to a na­tion and how one coach can help trans­form dreams in­to his­to­ry. With qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the 2026 FI­FA World Cup rest­ing up­on the lead­er­ship of one of your World Cup stars, Dwight Yorke, may you rest in peace, coach. Thank you.