In terms of his experience and knowledge of Caribbean football, they don't come much better qualified than Gary Darrell.

Gary is a long-time family friend of the Smith family and I'm thrilled he's returned to the national team set-up as a technical assistant to Kenny Thompson.

I think it's a wise move by Bermuda Football Association technical director Derek Broadley and Gary's presence will be invaluable for the squad in Trinidad.

It's sure to be a pressure cooker situation and Gary's cool, calm persona will be a major asset, especially for the younger players who will not have experienced a game of this magnitude before.

I doubt there will be 23,000 fans at the stadium like there was when the Soca Warriors played against England last week, but there's still sure to be a very healthy turn-out.

Gary actually shares the same birthday as me, so we've often jointly celebrated in the past. Hopefully we'll both be celebrating after our two qualifying matches against Trinidad!

A feel-good factor has swept through the national team set-up since Derek came onboard and Kenny took over as national team coach. Derek's brought bags of enthusiasm and professional experience and has really shaken things up a bit.

I don't know much about our new assistant coach, Richard Todd, but I've heard good things about him. If Kenny believes he's good enough to be his right-hand man then that's good enough for me - I totally trust his judgement.

Next Sunday's match in Port of Spain will be one of the biggest games in Bermuda's recent history and I'm chomping at the bit to get to there. Before we can start thinking about the Trinidad game we've got to focus fully our doubleheader against Barbados.

Sadly I won't be available for tonight's game at the National Sports Stadium as New England Revolution are up against FC Dallas, but I'll be involved for Monday's match.

Interestingly, Brazil take on Venezuela at the Gillette Stadium straight after the Revs game, so I'll certainly be sticking around to view that one.

The last time Brazil played at our place was against South American rivals Mexico and about 70,000 fans showed up. Hopefully a few of them may come and bump up our crowd prior to the clash.

It certainly promises to be an entertaining European Championships and I saw that Shaun Goater had tipped Portugal to win in his 'Read the Goat' column earlier this week. Well, I'm going to have to follow Shaun's lead and also back Phil Scolari's team.

A dark horse could be the Russians though. Their domestic game is greatly improving and I believe they may shock a few people. And, of course, there's the usual suspects like Germany, Italy, Spain and France. You can never overlook nations of that calibre.