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Tonight the United States moved a step closer to securing a spot in the 2006 World Cup by beating Trinidad and Tobago tonight. The game got off to a fast start as Brian McBride score 91 seconds into the match, but slowed down after.

Since Mexico beat Costa Rica at home 2-0 tonight, the United States is in second place in their group. The next game, a match against Mexico in Columbus, Ohio, could determine the winner of the group.

The match tonight versus Trinidad and Tobago was played in front of 25,488 fans in East Hartford, CT.

The United States outshot the Trinidad Tobago team 18-1 and Kasey Keller continued his impressive shutout streak, which now stands at 417 minutes.

Bruce Arena, the United States soccer manager, said:

I think we deserved the three points.  I thought we played very well and I think we felt guilty perhaps we made it a little bit difficult on ourselves. We created a number of good goal scoring opportunities and came up short, and that allowed Trinidad to hang around for 89 minutes or so and I think they could have been punished and sent home a lot earlier. Give them credit: they never quit. They defended well and we failed to convert our chances. However, the three points is huge. Fifteen points after six games is as good as it gets and I think we’re getting real close to qualifying for Germany. We’re pleased where we are. We’ll size up the troops after this game and prepare for the next set of games against Mexico and Guatemala.

Kasey Keller talked about the next match against Mexico, which was the last team to score on him:

We always want to win against Mexico. We’re qualifying right now so we really want to win against Mexico. They are always our best rival and this game is very important - maybe not in qualifying but just for all the people. Tickets were sold out in 20 minutes for this game and for all the people in the U.S., we can win this game. And another thing: it would be nice to qualify against Mexico. But the important thing today was the three points. Now we got to our clubs for a couple games and then we come back to the national team again against a good team.