Reggie Lambe has been given the rest of the season off by Cambridge United to prepare for Bermuda’s Concacaf Gold Cup campaign.

Lambe, who helped Bermuda reach the Gold Cup for the first time after finishing fifth in Nations League qualifiers, will miss Cambridge’s remaining games against Morecombe at home and Macclesfield Town away.

“Reggie, I’ve decided, because of his Gold Cup involvement, we’ll get him away and he can take the break that everyone else gets ... before he goes into training camp and then plays throughout the summer,” said Colin Calderwood, the Cambridge United manager, whose side are safe from relegation.

“He won’t be involved in the weekend or the last game.”

Bermuda face Haiti at the Estadio Nacional in San José, Costa Rica, in their opening game of the Gold Cup on June 16.

They then play Costa Rica, who took part in the World Cup in Russia last summer, at the Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas, on June 20 before facing Nicaragua at the Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, on June 24.

The Gold Cup has been extended from 12 teams to 16 teams split into four groups.

The seeded teams are Mexico in group A, Costa Rica in group B, Honduras in group C and the United States in group D. The remaining nations are Panama, Trinidad & Tobago, Canada, Martinique, Curaçao, Cuba, Guyana, Jamaica and El Salvador.

In the knockout rounds, the NRG Stadium in Houston and the Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia will host two quarter-final matches each, on June 29 and 30 respectively.

The winning teams will move on to State Farm Stadium in Phoenix and Nissan Stadium in Nashville for the semi-finals. The final is scheduled to be played on July 7 at Soldier Field in Chicago.