Second half goals from North Village's Shane Hollis and Boulevard's Angelo Simmons gave Bermuda Under 20s a deserved 2-0 victory over the Bahamas in the opening game of their FIFA World Youth Championships campaign last night.

With neither team scoring before half time in the US Virgin Islands, Keishen Bean's men kept their discipline after the break ? repelling numerous attacks from a skilful Bahamas side and nicking their goals on the break.

Before the game the local media were unanimous in their verdict that Bahamas would be the team to beat in a group boasting the US and British Virgin Islands as well as Bermuda ? making last night's victory even sweeter for coach Kyle Lightbourne.

"The Press here assumed that the Bahamas were going to walk through their games with very few problems, so tonight's result was fantastic for us," he said.

"Their youth side has had a lot of money thrown at it recently and they have been involved in a lot of special training camps and the like getting ready for this tournament, so to beat them like we did showed a lot of character from our guys.

"The Bahamas had some very good players, including a very tall lad up front who was a major threat from set pieces and corners. But we managed to deal with him and cause plenty of problems of our own. We kept our shape and our discipline and they found us very hard to break down ? and luckily when we carved out the chances we were able to take them."

Needing to win the group in order to advance to the next stage of the competition, and despite beating the team which, on paper at least, looked certain to give Bermuda their toughest test, Lightbourne was nonetheless guarded about their chances with two games to go.

"Beating a team like the Bahamas gives you confidence ? but you've always got to watch out for the host nation," he said.

"We do not know a lot about them either which always makes life a little bit more difficult. But if we continue to play like we did tonight we should be okay."

Bermuda have a rest day today before taking on BVI tomorrow evening, followed by USVI on Sunday.