from the World Cup yesterday.

The former West Ham player, who has continued working as a technical advisor with the national team since his contract as technical director expired at the end of March, said the end of the campaign meant it was probably time for him to move on.

"I can't see myself going on now,'' said Best. "We tried our best, but we didn't have all the pieces in the puzzle.

"When we don't have our best players, it's a bit of a wasted exercise. We didn't get that right this time, hopefully we will next time.'' The team had clearly missed absent professional strikers Shaun Goater and Kyle Lightbourne, added Best, and he felt that if one had played in either leg, Bermuda would have got through to the third qualifying round.

"It's annoying, because there are two guys overseas who could have helped us and they were sitting at home. But you can't knock the youngsters who played, they tried their best and gave it their all.

"We put on lots of pressure, but all you can is try your best and if the ball just doesn't go in the goal for you, you've got to accept it.'' Best admitted that the bench's decision to bring off Paul Cann for Kenny Mills was "probably a mistake on our part''.

"We just thought we could get a bit more going forward, but maybe we should just have sat back. If Kenny had done well and we'd have won, everybody would have been happy, but it didn't work out that way.'' Meanwhile coach Robert Calderon described as "nightmare-ish'' the experience of hearing constant criticism from the sidelines at the National Stadium.

"It's nightmare-ish coming up here and hearing all the criticism from people who are not aware of all the trials and tribulations we go through in putting this team together,'' said Calderon.

"It's disturbing and disheartening to walk on the field, knowing there will be one piece of criticism after another coming your way, without people being conscious of the fact that it is totally non-supportive.

"People have got to understand we are pulling players from our league, which is at best mediocre, and we can't expect them to suddenly play at a much higher level in internationals.'' Calderon felt the absence of Goater and Lightbourne had left their young stand-ins with just too much to do.

"We were relying today on very young kids to score goals for us and that's a heck of a lot of pressure to put on an 18-year-old kid,'' said Calderon.

"The kids playing up front did a splendid job, but when you enter these competitions and leave many people somewhere else, then at the end of the day, something bad happens.

"I'm proud of our players and the way they kept battling and we had enough chances to have won.

"Like I said before, if you go into it without your best players, you're playing World Cup Russian roulette -- and the dice did not roll for us today.

"If you go into the international arena without proven goalscorers, you are asking people to do things which are foreign to them. I could hear people criticising us, but what options did we have? We didn't have Kyle, we didn't have Shaun and you could go through a litany of names who were not available for whatever reason.'' We did it! Antigua players celebrate their 1-1 draw against Bermuda which, on the away goals rule, takes them into the third qualifying round of the World Cup.