Bermuda are gambling on an unknown quantity tonight when David Bascome partners Kyle Lightbourne up front against Cuba.

No one doubts their individual quality but they literally play different games and have had contrasting fortunes over the past nine months.

Lightbourne started the season as a Premier League footballer in England, got less than a handful of games with Coventry City's first team, playing mainly before crowds of under 1,000 in the reserves. He moved first to Fulham then to Stoke City, who were ultimately relegated to the Second Division, in a permanent transfer. He didn't score his first goal until April.

Bascome, meanwhile, completed his seventh year in the Indoor Soccer League, barely known to, and mattering little to, those outside the US.

He scored 46 goals in 40 games with the Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Heat, many of which were shown on live television and in front of crowds about seven times larger than those watching Lightbourne.

Lightbourne has not been bowed by his difficult campaign while Bascome is dismissive of suggestions that his version of the game is in any way inferior.

"A lot of people don't understand the indoor game but, you know, it's football, it's soccer,'' Bascome said. "I think it's helped me a lot with my sharpness. The only thing that's different really is the pace of the game.

Everything indoors is short fitness -- short, sharp runs.'' Indoor soccer is a six-a-side game played in a carpeted arena. He hasn't played the outdoor game in a long time but didn't look out place in scoring two goals against Miami Fusion on Tuesday night and doesn't expect problems against Cuba tonight.

"It's just about getting used to the fitness and the contact. One good thing, though, is that you have a lot of space. Indoors you don't have that, the game's a lot tighter.'' Bascome is so comfortable where he is that he doesn't worry that indoor soccer does not have the worldwide following of European leagues or even the burgeoning US Major League Soccer.

"I don't think I would go outdoors because of the financial situation,'' he says. "They couldn't pay me what I'm making.

"I'm going to stay where I'm comfortable. Harrisburg have been taking care of me for seven years, I have my family up there and everything's going fine.

There'd be no sense in moving all over the place.'' Lightbourne hasn't been as fortunate.

"Things didn't go as planned for me last season,'' he said. "But I just have to get on with it and hope next year will be a better one and one in which I get back in the First Division with Stoke.

"It was the first time I've been relegated in my life and it was awful. But you know I came in at the tail-end of the season and spirits were low then.

"They're a good bunch of lads but they just lost confidence. There was lot of trouble with the backroom staff and that was passed onto the team.'' He's hoping his first appearance with Bermuda in six years will help his career get back on track. "I'll just try my best to get back on the goal trail,'' he said. "That's the only thing I can do right now.''