HAMILTON, Bermuda – Bermuda captain Danté Leverock lamented errors after his side were handed a 5-1 thrashing by regional powerhouses Mexico in the CONCACAF Nations League on Friday night.
A near-capacity crowd of 4,003 at the National Stadium saw the visitors go into the break 2-0 up before they added three more goals in the second half when in-form striker Nahki Wells got Bermuda on the scoresheet, rifling home a left-footed shot over the defence from a left-wing Zeiko Lewis corner.
Mexico also missed a second-half penalty.
Leverock admitted his side’s heavy defeat in the League A, Group B encounter was “tough” to swallow.
Striker Nahki Wells … scored the lone goal for Bermuda.
“I think we are going to take all the positives from it and learn from our mistakes,” said Leverock, whose side won 2-0 away to Panama after losing 4-1 at home in their previous games
“I don’t think we gave up, even though it’s tough when you concede five goals. That’s never nice, especially for a defender, but we continued to fight. We had some good periods.
“We had chances and that’s encouraging to have chances against a powerhouse in the region. But again you can’t make individual mistakes at this level.
“I think it comes down to individual mistakes and their quality. At this level when you do make those individual mistakes you will get punished. It’s tough.”
Wells said he and his team-mates’ demise owed much to their “lack of experience” at this level.
“Just another difficult evening against a really tough opposition, lack of experience at times proved the difference,” he said.
“We commend them. They were the better side but we also know it shouldn’t be that scoreline.
“We have to take this one on the chin and learn from it. We are still a young group at this level and these occasions will only help us in the long run.”
National coach Kyle Lightbourne described Bermuda’s 5-1 defeat as a “learning curve” but believed they could “take heart” from their performance.
“We came out for the second half and started reasonably well but made another mistake and got punished for it,” he noted.
“At this level you get punished for your mistakes and that’s a learning curve for our team. I thought we did OK for large spells of the game.”
Mexico, playing their group opener, broke the deadlock in the 25th minute when Uriel Antuna collected a defence-splitting pass inside the area, before keeping his cool to round goalkeeper Dale Eve and slot the ball in.
Jose Macias added a second on the stroke of half-time while Bermuda were temporarily down to 10 men and added his second on 53 minutes before Wells reduced the arrears three minutes later.
However, Hirving Lozano restored Mexico’s three-goal advantage on the hour-mark and although he hit the post with a spot-kick awarded for a Jaylon Bather handball, Mexico added a fifth goal on 70 minutes.
Arguably the best goal of the night, captain Hector Herrera, who plays in Spain for top club Atletico Madrid, picked up possession 25 yards out before sending a curling effort past the helpless Eve into the far corner.
In the other League A contest, Cuba were smashed 7-0 by United States in Washington DC to lost their third straight game in Group A.
SCORES
League A
Group A
United States beat Cuba 7-0.
Group B
Bermuda lost to Mexico 5-1.
Group C
Trinidad & Tobago lost to Honduras 2-0
Group D
Haiti drew with Costa Rica 1-1
League B
Group A
French Guiana drew with Grenada 0-0
Belize lost to St Kitts and Nevis 4-0
Group C
Antigua & Barbuda beat Guyana 2-1.
Group D
St Vincent & the Grenadines drew with Suriname 2-2
Nicaragua beat Dominica 3-1