By Josh Ball Analysis

Before last night’s game, Andrew Bascome said he wanted his players to prove that they were worthy of a place in his squad for the World Cup qualifiers. Not everyone got the message.

Terrance Webb certainly did little to ingratiate himself with the head coach, and his senseless sending-off left his team-mates hanging on grimly for a draw they fully deserved.

That Bermuda almost won it at the death, denied by a fantastic double save from Jason Belfon, the Grenada goalkeeper, said as much for their perseverance as it did for Grenada’s own woes.

Out of season, and out of touch, Grenada did not provide the strongest opposition, but they did enough to cause concern and optimism for Bermuda’s future in equal measure.

It is not in Bascome’s nature to be cautious: his teams play an attacking style of football that is high-risk, high-reward, and demands that his players move constantly, with a fluidity more akin to a choreographed dance — and are mentally and physically switched on for the entire 90 minutes. Not all of them are capable of doing that.

In attack, Bermuda are solid. The final pass is sometimes lacking and the finishing last night left a lot to be desired, but the high-speed approach caught Grenada out often enough that Nahki Wells, for example, might have enjoyed himself immensely. Unfortunately, underneath that threatening exterior lies a soft underbelly prone to collapse at the slightest provocation, and it is here that players may have ruled themselves out of, rather than into, Bascome’s plans.

Long before Webb, who was deployed as a wing back in Bascome’s ever-changing system, was sent off, his lack of positional sense as a defender had been exposed, which meant the three central defenders — William White, Mauriq Hill and Jarreau Hayward — were also exposed. Disorganised defensively at best, incapable at worst, Grenada’s goals did not require clever trickery, or magnificent pieces of skill; rather, simple football through the middle undid Bermuda twice and, were Grenada at the top of their game, you felt it could have been more.

The imbalance between the two areas is something that needs to be resolved as quickly as the speed with which Bermuda turn defence into attack, and while there is strength in depth in certain areas, defence is not one of them. The speed of the attack in this system could turn out to be Bermuda’s greatest weakness, and it is possible that rather than changing personnel, it is Bascome who needs to change, recognising the realities of asking amateur footballers to adopt a system that professionals at the highest level have struggled to deal with.

A traditional 4-4-2 approach may be boring, but there are no prizes for style if you end up losing 5-4.

Still, there is plenty of reason to be optimistic. The squad is a young one, and at no point last night did the team appear out of their depth against a country who will not enter World Cup qualifying until the second round. Qualifying for the 2018 tournament is also not the endgame: the realities of the region mean that Bermuda must focus on competitions they can win, and there is plenty to suggest that the Caribbean Cup in 2016 could be a successful one with a little tweaking here and there.