Antigua as "a lost opportunity''.

Calderon felt the team should have capitalised better on the sending off of George Dublin, which left Antigua with 10 men for virtually the whole second half.

"It was definitely a lost opportunity and I hope it doesn't come back to haunt us,'' said Calderon after the match.

"I would have preferred a 1-1 draw. An away goal, to me, is critical. If we had scored, even if we had gone on to lose 2-1, it would have left us in a good situation, needing to win only 1-0 at home. So I'm disappointed.

"I would have taken 0-0 before the game and so I'm not totally dismayed. But having seen the chances we missed, I think we should have buried them.'' Fellow coach Clyde Best was much happier with the outcome.

"I'm over the moon,'' said Best. "Any time you go away from home in the World Cup and get a draw, it's a good result. I'm sure we can beat them at home next week.'' Best confirmed Bermuda would be requesting the release of Kyle Lightbourne, who played for Stoke at Wembley yesterday, for Sunday's second leg.

Meshach Wade, Bermuda's driving force in the midfield and the lone pro in the side, was confident Bermuda would advance.

"In a week's time, we should win, especially if Kyle's coming back. No disrespect to our front-runners today, but a little bit more experience up top, a goalscorer to work along with the youngsters -- I think that will make a difference.

"We started off a little slow in the first half, but we picked it up in the second when they had a guy sent off. Then we changed our formation and put two up front and it worked out for us. It was a little harder than we expected.

But even though we didn't come out of it with the victory we had hoped for, we didn't get beaten and we've got to take our business home.'' Calderon blamed himself for a tactical gaffe.

"In the first 30 minutes we allowed them to play too much and didn't track back and quite frankly, we did a lot of things badly,'' said the coach.

"We played with one up front and it didn't work for us and I take full responsibility for that. But in the second half, we made some adjustments, pushed two guys up front and we created some problems for them.

"They were certainly the best team in the first half and were unlucky not to go in at least one goal up. Having said that, we must have had five good chances in the second half.

"Obviously Kyle and Shaun would have made a difference. They are class players. Give them five chances and at least three of them will go in.

"We can definitely beat them at home, but it will be a tricky game and we still have a lot of work to do.'' Meanwhile, Antigua's Yugoslav technical director Zoran Vranesh announced that he had tendered his resignation -- and will leave after Sunday's second leg, whatever the result.

"After the rematch against Bermuda, I will leave this country, definitely,'' said the former Red Star Belgrade coach.

"I have already resigned, there have been too many problems.'' Vranesh still has more than two years on his contract to run, but decided to quit because he said promises made to him by the Antigua Football Association had not been kept.

Vranesh added: "It was a tough game, as I had expected. We didn't help ourselves when Dublin got a second yellow card. Why he did that, I don't understand. It left us with 10 men against a better team than us.

"But I'm satisfied with the result and the game is still open. We can probably still win.''