to have any chance of reaching this year's Olympic Games.

Their luckless 1-0 defeat against Panama on Wednesday night left them needing a win and then a Cuban victory over Panama on Sunday to have any chance of advancing to the next qualifying phase. And despite their setback against the host country, national coach Clyde Best was satisfied with their performance and reckoned they were capable of beating Cuba if they remained focused.

"We don't know all that much about Cuba and we don't necessary feel that they are a step ahead of Panama or ourselves,'' said Best.

"We are aware that Cuba play at a high standard and we must therefore do everything to ensure that our performance is not affected in any negative way by the conditions of the pitch which is not good,'' said Best.

From their first inspection of the playing surface at the Rommel Fernandez stadium on Monday the Bermuda coaching staff were surprised by its poor condition. Yesterday Best maintained that it was a pity that a tournament of this nature had to be held a surface so bad.

"The pitch is certainly one of the worst I have seen in the Caribbean or Latin American countries, but our players simply have to work harder at getting to play the ball ahead to the front players as soon as possible,'' he said.

"We played well against Panama under the circumstances, now we must forget about the hard surface and concentrate on scoring goals. I want to see us take our chances this time, we had enough to come out of the Panama game victorious.'' For the game, Cuba's opener, Bermuda will probably make one or two changes, according to Best.

"The condition of the pitch didn't allow us to play a decent, organised, flowing sort of game but now that we have gained some experience on it we expect to do better.''