With a full complement of overseas professionals joining their ranks for the Bermuda tour, Canada insist that they are taking Sunday’s match-up against Kenny Thompson’s side seriously.

“It will be anything but a friendly kick-about,” claimed interim coach Stephen Hart whose views were shared by three players who are expected to be prominently involved in their attack, striker Paul Stalteri of Tottenham Hotspur, Tomasz Radzinski of Fulham and Dwayne DeRosario of the Houston Dynamo.

Taking a few moments off from yet another one of the many extensive training sessions they have held at the National Sports Centre northern field during more than a week that they have been on the Island, they hinted that, as professionals, they intended to approach the match in that same fashion.

“Coming here was important for us, number one to hold a camp here was a unique opportunity to get as many of the players together as possible, to train together and to get to know each other a little bit better. National teams are a little bit harder than club teams to get the relationships right and this is the right opportunity to do just that,” said Hart.

“We had a camp in January for the North American based players more or less. It was held in Florida but we didn’t play any games, mainly because everybody was out of season and it would have been difficult to do that. This is our second camp and we are lucky enough to be able to play an international.

“We are lucky to have players like Paul and Dwayne here, one is near the end of his season and the other is back in season, and it wasn’t too difficult to get them come here to join us and get this game in. The other potential country for such a camp would have would have meant them travelling longer distances and that wouldn’t be to suitable.”

Canada last played a competitive game in Hungary last November and lost that contest by a 1-0 score but the coach pointed out that it was those sort of fixtures which were ideal for the team to gauge where they are at.

The squad is a formidable one with the coach delighted that they were able to assemble so any of their regulars at this time of the year, with their European-based players featuring heavily.

Stalteri, who is expected to lead the attack on Sunday, said Canada were looking forward to a spirited contest against Bermuda.

“No game at this level is a friendly kick-about. When we get together, it’s so seldom and we have to take the opportunity that presents itself and we have to give us best whatever the level of the competition,” said the Spurs’ ace.

MVP runner-up DeRosario, an attacking midfielder, added: “Because we are a country that doesn’t play that many games it is important that every game that we do play is important and we get the best out of it. It’s vital that we get to know each other and be ready for the bigger tournaments when they do occur.”

The coach also felt that Canada would be wise to concentrate on playing as many teams in the Concacaf region as possible.

“We think it’s important that we play as many games as possible and that we play as many as possible in Concacaf,” he said. “We think Concacaf is very different from some of the other regions simply because of the variance in styles.

“Also another concern that we have is that we have played 22 games less than the top five teams games that went to Concacaf and that’s unacceptable, so we want to improve on that,” he explained.

Bermuda Football Association gneral scretary David Sabir assured the public that Sunday’s matched promised to be a competitive one with the Bermuda national team prepared to be fully extended by the visitors.

“It’s been quite a few years since a full strength Canadian national team has been to the island and we have been working with our Canadian neighbours to try to put together a formula that ultimately enabled them to visit us now with a formidable squad with players from professional teams from around the world.

“I am pleased to also reveal that our own national team will comprise the players who have committed themselves to the training regime set by our interim coach Kenny Thompson. Our team will comprise players who want to be a part of the national programme as we move forward into the future.”

Canada squad: Lars Hirschfeld, Tam Nsaliwa, Ante Jazic, Kevin McKenna, Andre Hainault, Issey Nakajima-Farran, Paul Stalteri, Julian De Guzman, Tomasz Radzinski, Rob Friend, Richard Hastings, Gabriel Gervais, Atiba Hutchinson, Dwayne De Rosario, Kevin Harmse, Martin Nash, Iain Hume, Kenny Stamatopoulos.