There's a lot of underlying problems; lack of chemistry, the coach switches to an untested 3-5-2 formation in his first qualifier (especially retarded when, like u said, defense was the problem), lots of questions over team selection, disillusioned fans thus lack of fan support, the games location was switched no less than 3 times due to politics involving Warner and the Minister of Sports (apparently warner refuses to pay what the minister asks for rental of any of the state owned stadias so we ended up using "his private" stadium for the match) Having said all this, there is still no excuse for loosing at home to Bermuda regardless of how many chances Stern John and Jason Scotland muffed.
Its just soccer I guess. Once in a while these upsets happen. I fully expect T&T to beat Bermuda in the second leg, even though it's in Bermuda. There's too much talent for them not to. If they do go out, that semifinal group is pretty much a joke. US, Guate, Bermuda, and probably Cuba. Although last time the US and Cuba met, it wasn't any easy game for us. Now the group 3 is in danger of being a real joke. We could have a foursome of Grenada, Netherlands Antilles, Suriname, and El Salvador. Now all 4 of those teams would have earned the right to be there. Still all the Group 2 Big teams won and it looks almost certain to be Mexico, Honduras, Canada, and Jamaica. I know it's luck of the draw, but you'd like for the top 6 teams in the region to all meet in the hex (I say that I know as a fan of one of those top 6. Other's will surely disagree).
Now on to today's action ... Antigua and Barbuda is leading Cuba 2-1 in the 27th minute. A pair of goals by Kerry Skepple (9', 13') sandwiched a score by Jaime Valencia (10'). FYI, population of Cuba - 11 million, population of Antigua and Barbuda - 83,000.
Cuba tied it up 2-2 in the 22nd minute (wow, that's kind of weird). They're in added-on time for the first half.
What a crazy game at the Sir Vivian Richards Cricket Stadium today. It appears to be a final: 3-3. FIFA has Valencia scoring again for Cuba in the 74th minute, but does not have Antigua and Barbuda's third goal attributed to an individual yet. So definitely unofficial at the moment.
Nusum is a solid player--played with Dempsey and Clark at Furman and was a three-time First Team All-American, I believe the only player since Reyna to do so (although that's partially because most guys good enough to do that go pro). Was drafted by the Crew, didn't make the team but maybe he would have if he'd been American. Scored two goals against El Salvador in the last qualifying campaign. Bermuda is tough to get a read on--they made the semifinals in qualifying for USA '94 and did alright, beating El Salvador and drawing Canada and Jamaica at home, while not getting embarrassed on the road. But then they had a big scandal where several members of their U-23 team (including Meshach Wade, who played against Trinidad on Sunday) were caught with drugs at the Miami airport and they basically shut down their program for five years, missing the prime of Shaun Goater and Kyle Lightbourne's careers, and they are still recovering from that. They were just barely eliminated from WCQ in both 2002 (away goals against Antigua, with Goater out due to a freak injury) and 2006 (4-3 against El Salvador), so they are not far from being considered one of the better Caribbean teams. I suspect that having almost their whole team playing together with the Hogges helps a lot.
With the exception of Honduras' already-finished dispatching of Puerto Rico, here is the entire Second Leg schedule (with scores from first leg in parentheses): Wednesday, June 18 Bahamas vs. Jamaica - Trelawny, JAM - 5 p.m. (0-7) Friday, June 20 Canada vs. St. Vincent / Grenadines - Montreal - 8:30 p.m. (3-0) Saturday, June 21 Mexico vs. Belize - Monterrey - 10 p.m. (2-0) Costa Rica vs. Grenada - San Jose - 10 p.m. (2-2) St. Lucia vs. Guatemala - Los Angeles, USA - 10 p.m. (0-6) Sunday, June 22 Barbados vs. United States - Bridgetown - 3 p.m. (0-8) Guyana vs. Suriname - Georgetown - 4:30 p.m. (0-1) Cuba vs. Antigua and Barbuda - Havana - 5 p.m. (4-3) Netherlands Antilles vs. Haiti - Willemstad - 6 p.m. (0-0) Bermuda vs. Trinidad and Tobago - Prospect - 7:30 p.m. (2-1) El Salvador vs. Panama - San Salvador - 8 p.m. (0-1) All times ET. http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/preliminaries/nccamerica/matches/index.html