Trinidad and Tobago's Dwight Yorke waves after his team lost to Paraguay in their Group B World Cup match in Kaiserslautern on Tuesday. - REUTERS
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC):
TRINIDAD AND Tobago's Prime Minister, Patrick Manning, has announced a hero's welcome for the Soca Warriors on their return to Trinidad later this week from the World Cup in Germany.
But the squad will have to wait until their return home to find out how the Government plans to reward them for their accomplishment.
Manning, speaking at a news conference at Whitehall shortly after the team's 2-0 defeat by Paraguay on Tuesday said: "I wish to assure them that they will get a reception the likes of which the country has never seen before and we would announce how they would be honoured at that time."
He said the Government had a "good idea" of how it would reward the team and planned to talk to captain Dwight Yorke about arrangements for the team's return "at the earliest opportunity".
While Manning dismissed reports of a public holiday, he said the team had put Trinidad and Tobago on the map "and it didn't matter whether they won, drew or lost. We have won in a big way".
PERSONAL CONGRATULATIONS
He said he had also been in touch with Paraguayan president Nicanor Duarte Frutos' office to extend his personal congratulations on the sterling performance of the South American team.
"Our modest expectation of our team has in fact been exceeded since no team could score more than two goals against us," Manning said.
"The England team would never forget that there is a Trinidad and Tobago and the Swedes would now be much more circumspect when they confront us in the future."
There was mixed reaction in the country on Tuesday after T&T's loss. While the mood was one of disappointment, in the end people took to the streets in the upbeat St. James area to celebrate the Soca Warriors' World Cup campaign.
T&T failed to win a game in the preliminaries, drawing with Sweden and losing to England and Paraguay in their first ever qualification to the FIFA World Cup finals.
They became the fourth Caribbean country - after Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica - to appear at the World Cup.
