SUNDAY is as good a time as any to fill the new grandstand at the National Sports Centre for the first time.

The occasion is the World Cup first-round qualifying match against Montserrat and Bermuda's national coach Kenny Thompson is counting on the support of the local fans to give the team a clear home advantage.

Thompson was a player during Bermuda 1992 qualifying matches for the '94 World Cup and remembers how the support of a packed National Stadium helped lift the team to home wins over Haiti and El Salvador. A good result at home to Montserrat could make the team's return leg in the volcano-hit island on March 21 a little easier to manoeuvre.

"That's the most important thing, that we take advantage of the home situation with the support of the Bermuda public," said Thompson.

"It's important they get behind the team from the beginning. Last time, by the time we had played El Salvador the momentum and interest was built up from successes against Haiti and Antigua. So it's important that we get support from the very beginning and not have a wait-and-see attitude.

"We need them to be a part of it from the beginning, to ensure that we get a good start." Montserrat's 204th ranking out of 204 countries would suggest that Bermuda would be the favourites to advance to the second round meeting with El Salvador. But Thompson is only looking to this match and the first leg specifically.

For that reason he is careful not to think too much about Shaun Goater's availability for the El Salvador match in June, just in case Bermuda come up against a Montserrat team than contradicts their rock bottom ranking.

"It's important that we don't look too far down the road," he warned.

In the last campaign in 2000 Bermuda lost over two legs to Antigua ? the same Antigua team that Bermuda beat 5-1 on aggregate, including 3-0 in Antigua.

"If we can get past the hurdle of Montserrat, we can look forward to Shaun playing a role in the next round. It is encouraging that he has expressed an interest, which he did from the beginning. With his situation at Reading now he feels a little bit more secure and that is good for him and also good for us."

Thompson finalised his team yesterday and said he has a pretty good idea who he wants his starting 11 to be. The team played another practice match on Wednesday evening against Commercial League team MR Onions. Now the 20 players picked for Sunday are scheduled to move into a hotel today.

"We started off with some Commercial League opponents like MR Onions and Robin Hood and also worked our way through teams like PHC, North Village, Dandy Town and Boulevard. In the beginning we wanted to get some matches that we could work on some of the concepts that we wanted to involve in this team," said Thompson, at 39 possibly Bermuda's youngest ever head coach.

"Then we tried to increase the degree of difficulty (against the Premier Division teams) and now coming back to MR Onions it is a match which enables us to stretch our legs in a match situation prior to the World Cup match without it being too stressful. We didn't want it to be too difficult just a few days before the match."

While many of the players are new to the World Cup scene, there is still some experience in vital areas as goalkeeper Dwayne Adams, defender Kentoine Jennings and midfielder Meshach Wade have all been on the scene since at least the 1994 World Cup qualifying campaign. So, too, has Goater who was on Second Division Rotherham's books at that time.

Adams was recently appointed team captain, but Troy Hall's two outstanding performances in the team's two good showings against Trinidad and Tobago in the most recent matches might mean Adams having to play a substitute role...and someone else wearing the captain's armband.

"It's still one of those decisions that needs to be made," said the coach of his choice for the key position.

"It's a good situation to be in, we have quality goalkeepers that we can trust. The headache part would be looking over your shoulder and hoping that one 'keeper remains fit because you don't trust the other 'keeper. That would be more of a headache than the situation that I'm currently in."

The postponement of midweek games means that the players can focus solely on the task at home.

"I had talked previously with the committee chairman about freeing up the week but then there were matches scheduled because there is a backlog at this time," explained Thompson.

"I got the word on Monday that the matches would not go ahead and that was certainly welcomed news to me. We had planned for the team to get together every day this week, so from that perspective we were able to achieve that.

"From the injury factor we didn't want to be worried about players picking up a knock and being unavailable."

Thompson admits a good result on Sunday would be a win without conceding a goal at home, knowing that the away-goals rule could decide the tie.

"We've been constantly reminding the players that complacency can't get in the way of the responsibility of going out and treating each opponent with respect," he revealed.

"I don't believe that the players will allow complacency to get in the way, especially since we don't know anything about the opponents. That's, in a way, a good thing.

"We all don't know what to expect and should be on our guard for a potentially difficult match."

One set of supporters who will be cheering on Bermuda on Sunday will be the players from MR Onions who played against the national team on Wednesday at the National Sports Centre's north field.

Chris Fleming, who led MR Onions on Wednesday, said: "It was a good training match. Kenny used nearly two complete sides so he could evaluate his players and we had rolling subs. We really enjoy playing in these training matches ? especially on a good pitch and against good players. As expected they won quite handily ? 8-0 ? but we felt that we gave them a good workout."

Thompson has a good relationship with MR Onions and has used the Commercial Division team a number of times before in training matches. Fleming said: "We have played the Bermuda (senior) team once before Christmas but we have also played a number of games against Kenny's Under-17 and Under-15 sides. It is good for them and good for us. Most of our boys will be going to the game on Sunday to cheer Bermuda on."