🇧🇲 Nahki Wells ready to help Bermuda push for USMNT showdown in Gold Cup
The star forward missed WCQ after a grueling season but is back for the tournament where Bermuda made its name
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Where’s Nahki Wells?
That’s what even rival fans wanted to know ahead of Bermuda’s World Cup qualification matches in March and June.
The answer? The same place you’d be if you’d just played 50 matches in a club campaign with little break from your previous season: Resting at home.
“I just thought it was important that I didn't finish a very heavy season to then jump right back into international football without taking the required rest that I needed,” Wells told me this week via Zoom from Florida. “I just took my rest and got my head down and then started to prepare personally and physically for what's to come: Another long, gruesome season and hopefully a successful cup run.”
The Gombey Warriors struggled in qualification without Wells and a couple of other key players (center back Dante Leverock retired but has since unretired). Now that the forward is back in the fold and feeling strong, they’re hoping to win Friday’s qualification match and the match that follows to land in a group with the U.S., Canada and Martinique.
Bermudan soccer surged at the 2019 Gold Cup, when the pink-clad squad fell by just one goal to Costa Rica in its second group match and then beat Nicaragua 2-0 for its first-ever Gold Cup win. Wells scored in both those matches and later in 2019 knocked in a double to give Bermuda a 2-0 road victory in Panama, its only victory in a tough group that also included Mexico.
Performance in that tournament landed Bermuda in this spot, facing Barbados and the winner of Haiti v. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to get back to the Gold Cup proper. Bermuda needed to draw with Mexico on the final day to get in and nearly had another shock result in Toluca, only for Uriel Antuna’s stoppage-time winner to put Bermuda down to League B and into the preliminary phase.
“It's a bit frustrating that we have to go through this through this manner,” he said, “We're focused on the task at hand, we know we have to come through two qualifying games. There has to be a winner, and we're totally focused on Friday night's task, overcoming Barbados.”
Wells likely won’t catch Shaun Goater’s all-time scoring record for Bermuda, but he has been the leader for this generation of players on the island. That leadership role has been codified with Wells putting the captain’s armband back on heading into this tournament.
While many Caribbean competitors continue to reap the benefits of a large diaspora, Wells is from the island and played with the Dandy Town Hornets and then experimental PDL side Bermuda Hogges, then jumped to lower-league English football and eventually worked his way up to the Premier League with Burnley.
He’s currently in the Championship with Bristol City, where he scored 10 league goals this season and won the club’s golden boot.
“At times it almost feels so natural to have done what I've done, but when I really take it in, where I've come from, obviously, born and raised in Bermuda, entire family from Bermuda, played in Bermuda up until I was 20 … (getting to the Premier League) was the dream.
“As a kid growing up from Bermuda, it was only something that one person every 20, 30 years, can achieve, and I was that one,” he said.
Now, the 31-year-old is not only working to help Bermuda continue to reach its goals on the field but also to make sure young players know it’s possible to follow in his footsteps.
“I wouldn't love anything more than to captain our country against the likes of United States and Canada, and hopefully put in the performance of our lives, which could enable other players amongst this squad to have opportunities in the future,” he said. “That's totally what this is about. This is about trying to transcend the game in Bermuda, and put the island on the map. We're striving for that, and I'm looking forward to it. Fingers crossed, that's what we can do.”
He would’ve loved for circumstances to be different and to be scoring goals in World Cup qualification, but he did what he felt was best for himself and for his country.
Perhaps his absence looked odd from the outside, but come Friday there will be no doubt where Nahki Wells is. He’ll be up top wearing the Bermuda shirt, and if any defenders look around and are asking “Where’s Nahki Wells?” it’s far too late for them to stop him.
Back Friday with another story from the qualification rounds and a little preview of what to expect from the matches. Thanks, as always, for your social media shares, your feed back and your notes to your group chat telling them to subscribe.