Bermuda 1 Honduras 6

Bermuda’s 2026 World Cup aspirations suffered a huge dent after they were heavily beaten by Honduras in their second qualifying match at the Flora Duffy Stadium last night.

While it was always going to be tough for Michael Findlay’s side against such highly rated opponents, there was some hope at half time with the score at 1-1 before the away side scored three times in 15 minutes at the start of the second half to run away with the game maintain their 100 per cent record.

The defeat pushed Bermuda down to fourth position in the five-team group, with the Bermudians above only Cuba, who face Cayman Islands at home on Tuesday, but despite the heavy loss coach Michael Findlay was keen to remain optimistic.

“We were not ashamed at all tonight and I was quite proud of the efforts every one of the players made against a team like Honduras,’’ Findlay said.

“At the same time there were situations and deficiencies we’ll have to address. There’s also realities we have to work on.”

Missing the services of Harry Twite, who was ruled out after picking up a knock in the 1-1 draw against Antigua & Barbuda four days earlier, Bermuda’s defence was put to the test throughout the match.

Dale Eve was called into action three times in the opening five minutes to deny Luis Palma twice and Antony Lozano, the Honduras captain.

The home side’s rearguard was eventually breached in the fourteenth minute when Kervin Arriaga was picked out by Palma and made no mistake with his shot at goal.

Bermuda equalised four minutes into added time at the end of the first half when Kole Hall was impeded inside the box by Luis Vega and referee Karen Hernandez pointed to the spot. Zeiko Lewis sent Edrick Menjivar the wrong way to bring the home side level.

That was a as good as it got for Bermuda and defender Luke Robinson shared his thoughts on what they could have done better defensively.

“I think just maybe dropping a little bit quicker, but ultimately the first half it’s 1-1,’’ Robinson said.

“The second half you can see maybe fitness levels from players who are in season now and those who play in the top flight.

“That happened the same with Guinea [Fifa Series], where we were in the game in the first half and then in the second half you can maybe see that fitness level come into play. We opened up a lot more and that’s just unfortunate for us.

“It’s something that we’ll have to take accountability for and try get ourselves in environments where that’s just normal for us.

“I don’t think it was necessarily as bad as the result says, but I think you can see there’s a lot of work to be done.

“We have to watch the game back, see what we could do better. We have to take these lessons into the Nations League and just try to implement anything that we can do as well.”

David Ruiz, Edwin Rodriguez and Vega found the net for Honduras early in the second half before Andy Najar and substitute Bryan Róchez completed the rout.

“We knew they were going to turn the heat up in the first five to ten minutes of the second half,’’ Findlay said.

“I’m sure that from their perspective, they probably were not pleased with their performance.

“That team expects to beat us, the demands on them are to beat us. We tried to prepare for them turning up the heat, but we had issues with the second and third runners that were coming into the channels in attack.

“That comes with experience and what we’ve seen as we slowly grow is we’re finding ourselves becoming more comfortable and understanding what our capabilities are, which I think are very high from a footballing point of view.

“We have to match that footballing IQ along with the understanding of what it takes to deny opposition opportunities, like we were presented tonight in which they were clinical.”

Photo gallery

SCORERS

Bermuda: Lewis 45+4 pen

Honduras: Arriaga 14, Ochoa 49, Rodriguez 53, Vega 56, Najar 62, Mejia 90+1

TEAMS

Bermuda (4-2-3-1): D Eve — J Butterfield-Steede, D Leverock, R Lee, L Robinson — A Todd (sub: N Tucker, 57min), K Martin — Z Lewis (sub: D Swan-DeSilva, 80), K Crichlow (sub: S Ming, 66), D Parfitt-Williams (sub: K Scott, 81), — K Hall (sub: J Bean, 66). Substitutes not used: H Twite, R Coddington, R Jones, D Bell, A Kempe, R Robinson, C McDowell. Booked: Lee

Honduras (4-4-1-1): E Menjivar — K Arriaga, L Vega, C Melendez, A Najar (sub: R Santos, 67) — L Palma (sub: W Decas 76), J Rosales, D Flores (sub: F Martinez 76), E Rodriguez (sub: A Lopez, 67) — D Ochoa — C Lozano (sub: B Mejia, 67). Substitutes not used: J Rougier, L Lopez, C Pineda, J Martinez, R Castillo, D Garcia, J Alvarez.

Referee: K Hernandez (Mexico).