BERMUDA'S national football team will face a tough assignment at the beginning of next month when they face Major League Soccer's New England Revolution.

And while Bermuda's National team, the Bermuda Select and Dandy Town, fared quite well last month when they met a Santos B team from Brazil, the team for the Revolution could be a tougher prospect as the players are expected to be older and physically tougher.

And if they play like their manager Steve Nicol, Bermuda can expect harder matches.

While many in England still are under the impression that football in the United States is played at a low level, both Scotsman Nicol and Englishman Mariner know better having lived and worked in the country for a number of years now.

Nicol, who has won 27 caps for Scotland and was part of the great Liverpool side that won the European Cup, four First Division (Premiership) titles and three FA Cups when he played with the Reds from 1982 to 1994, said the game in the United States is of a high standard.

He told Nick Greenslade of in London earlier this month: "I have to confess I had never given a moment's thought to American soccer but I liked what I saw. I think there's still a myth, probably based on the usual British sense of superiority, that the Americans can't play soccer. Let me tell you, they can. Just look at the last World Cup in Korea and Japan, where they got to the same stage (the quarter-finals) as England. And they obviously got further than Ireland, Wales or Scotland. The days of the 35-year-old pro turning up in the States to earn some easy money before retiring are long gone."

Mariner, who was a striker for Ipswich and England, said: "The players are exceptional athletes ? their physical conditioning would have put many English players to shame, including me. Yet they don't have the same speed of thought. That's probably why I managed to get away with playing sweeper when I arrived. But the standard is now much improved. This is a great country to live in."