Keishen Bean?s under-20 national football squad are in the US Virgin Islands gearing up for the first qualifying stage of the FIFA World Youth Championships which begin tonight.

To advance to the next phase of the competition, Bermuda must finish top of a regional group containing tonight?s opponents, the Bahamas, as well as British Virgin Islands and the hosts ? with assistant coach Paul Scope warning yesterday that the Island?s higher FIFA ranking at a senior level would mean nothing over the course of the next five days.

?We?re favourites on paper, but as we have never seen the other sides play before at this level, it really is impossible to tell how we?re going to do,? he said.

?We lost to the senior British Virgin Islands team in the Digicel Cup (in 2004), and given that they are, shall we say, generous with their citizenship requirements, again there is just no way of knowing who we are going to come up against and how good they?re going to be.

?Only the top finisher goes through to the next stage as well, so with three games in five days, we have to be switched on from the very beginning and cannot afford to lose a single match ? and even if we win all three it will be important to win them by several goals to help with goal difference.

?If I had to guess, I would expect the Bahamas to be our toughest match and we?ve got them first, so there is no room for error or complacency.?

Scope, who flew straight to the US Virgin Islands from the Greek island of Rhodes where he was a member of Bermuda?s unsuccessful Small Island Games delegation, agreed that skipper Bean ? the highly-rated North Village striker ? would be the player everybody looked to for inspiration.

But he also pointed to others like PHC?s Cecoy Robinson, Devonshire Colts? Shane Dietz and Boulevard?s Angelo Simmons as individuals he expects to shine.

?We believe we have a talented squad capable of doing well,? he said.

?They?ve been training regularly together for about three months now and are a very hard-working bunch of guys. The good thing about the squad is that we?ve got several players who have either played, or will soon play, for the senior team, all of whom have also got experience playing at a senior level with their club sides.

?Anything could happen but we are cautiously optimistic about our prospects.?

Bermuda have taken 20 players to the Caribbean, but had to name an official 18-man squad late last night in accordance with the Caribbean Football Association?s tournament rules.

The FIFA World Youth Championship finals will be held in Canada next year.