Strikers Nahki Wells and Rai Simons have made themselves unavailable for Bermuda’s Caribbean Cup first round matches against Cuba and French Guiana while teenager Detre Bell has been preferred to experienced goalkeeper Freddy Hall as back-up to Dale Eve.

More than half of the 20-man squad are based overseas, either in college in the United States and Canada or playing professional or semi-professional football in England, with Bell studying at South Kent School in Connecticut. He played for North Village in their drawn match against Southampton Rangers 11 days ago.

Maurice Lowe, the BFA technical development director, who will accompany the team, confirmed that Wells and Simons were unavailable for the two matches, next Tuesday in Cuba and then at home to French Guiana on Saturday, March 26.

The team depart for Cuba tomorrow.

Both Wells and Simons have opted to remain with their clubs in England, with Wells a key player in Huddersfield Town’s battle to stay clear of the relegation zone in the Championship.

“Just focused on club career at the moment,” Wells told The Royal Gazette by e-mail yesterday. “My body needs the rest when I have a break, and I thought pulling out of the games was the best thing to do for myself.”

Wells has made 34 league and cup appearances this season, including five as sub, and leads his team’s scoring with fifteen goals.

Simons is still trying to establish himself in his first season at League One club Chesterfield where he has made 21 appearances this season, 15 of them as a substitute, and scored five goals. Hall, who turned 31 last week, has just started his season in Ireland with Limerick who won their first two league matches 4-1 and 5-2 in the First Division after being relegated last season.

“Rai and Nahki have declined while for Freddy we have drafted in Detre Bell as we like some of his qualities,” Lowe said. “In our previous World Cup qualifiers we were looking at some of the younger players, so in Detre’s case we’re looking at one of the next goalkeepers coming through.

“It is not so much players’s commitments with their clubs but it is the Fifa international window, however I guess they are trying not to disrupt their professional careers so they declined the invitation. The door is always open for them, but we are not past the first round yet and we have quite a challenge in front of us.

“This is our strongest team, the strongest team we have available. I’m confident we’ll go to Cuba and return to Bermuda versus French Guiana and work very hard. There’s no guaranteed results in football but I can guarantee we’re going to work really, really hard to get those favourable results.”

Keishen Bean of North Village, was the captain of Bermuda in the absence of Wells, but Lowe said no decision had been made on the captaincy.

Reggie Lambe of Mansfield will join the team on the Cuba trip along with striker Jonté Smith, Dante Leverock, Roger Lee, Zeko Lewis and Marco Warren. Damon Ming, at 37, the senior player in the squad, makes the trip after just helping Dandy Town land another league title.

Seven players from Dandy Town made the trip to St Kitts with the national team for two friendlies, but Ming and Drewonde Bascome are the only two selected from the champions. Only eight players in the squad are based in Bermuda, Na’eem Griffith and Jahnai Raynor of PHC, Antwan Russell, Jaylon Bather and Lejuan Simmons of Robin Hood being the others.

SQUAD

Bermuda: D Bascome, N Griffith, J Bather, R Thompson-Lambe, K Bean, D Bell, A Russell, Z Lewis, J Raynor, T Ming, J Donawa, D Ming, D Eve, J Minors, R Lee, L Simmons, D Leverock, J Smith, M Warren, K Elkinson. Coaches: A Bascome (head coach), K Lightbourne (assistant coach).