New England coach Steve Nicol is looking forward to getting his players onto some grass next week.

The Major League Soccer side jet into Bermuda on Monday for a series of friendly matches and the important task of taking on LD Alajuelense in the Concacaf Champions Cup a week on Wednesday.

The former Liverpool legend has had his players back for three weeks of training, the first two just strength and conditioning and the last with the ball, but Boston?s freezing temperatures have kept all the training indoors ? making the trip to Bermuda all the more important.

?It?s great for the players to get outdoors,? said Nicol, who lists Bermudian Khano Smith as ?questionable? for the tour matches due to recent minor knee surgery.

?A good flat surface allows us to work on what we want and it can get the players confident again on the ball. We?re looking forward to getting in and getting on with some training.?

Nicol is also hoping that the successes which followed last year?s pre-season trip to Bermuda, in which Smith was scouted, will be repeated.

?Bermuda proved to be a great place for us to begin our season last year,? said Nicol, whose side comfortably won the Eastern Conference before going down 1-0 in the MLS finale.

?We got a lot out of the tour. The facilities were excellent and we faced a good standard of competition and hope to do so again this time, although we have the addition of our Champions Cup tie.

?It?s not an ideal time of the season to be playing the Costa Ricans but our season?s schedule is determined by the weather so we have to make the best of it.

?We could sit around crying about have to playing at this time of year or we could just get on with it.?

And Nicol is hoping his side?s decision to switch the home leg of their tie with the Costa Rican champions to Bermuda, rather than a neutral southerly American city, will pay off.

?We?re hoping that the crowd will get behind us and it will become like a home game,? added Nicol, whose side will also take on Kyle Lightbourne?s national team and the Jamaican Under-23s on the trip before heading down to Costa Rica for the second leg.

?I think we built a good relationship with the Bermuda public last time and also with Khano being from there, we are hoping they will get behind us.?