Trinidad & Tobago's hopes of repeating their 2006 World Cup finals appearance were dented by a 2-1 home loss to Bermuda in their CONCACAF qualification play-off first leg, while the USA began with a crushing 8-0 win over Barbados.

In other second preliminary round first-leg matches, Jamaica hammered Bahamas 7-0, Canada won 3-0 in St Vincent and the Grenadines and Mexico stuttered to a 2-0 win over Belize in the first meeting of the two neighbours.

USA captain Landon Donovan had complained about the format of the CONCACAF qualifiers, which forces the region's top nations to play two-leg ties against rank outsiders for a place in the group stage, but he had little to worry about against Barbados.

Clint Dempsey opened the scoring when he turned in Carlos Bocanegra's pass after only 53 seconds, Michael Bradley fired the second after 12 minutes and Brian Ching made it 3-0 in Carson, California.

Dempsey and Ching added further goals in the second half while Donovan and Eddie Johnson were also on target and Daryl Ferguson put through his own goal.

Jamaica and Canada also made sure that their return matches would be little more than formalities.

Ricardo Gardner, Demar Phillips and Marlon King put the Reggae Boyz in control by scoring in a eight-minute spell in the first half at Kingston's National stadium.

Luton Shelton added two more after the re-start and Andrew Williams and Omar Daley shared the other goals.

Canada's Ali Gerba came on as a seventh-minute substitute for the injured Rob Friend in Kingstown and scored late in each half in their 3-0 win.

Issey Nakjima-Farran opened the scoring from Tomasz Radzinki's pass in the 32nd minute.

Mexico were less convincing, taking more than one hour to break down the amateurs of Belize.

Arsenal youngster Carlos Vela broke through in the 62nd minute and Mexico's record scorer Jared Borgetti added the second with a stoppage-time penalty, his 44th international goal.

Belize were technically the home team but the game was played in Houston as the Central Americans do not have a stadium which meets FIFA standards.

The only upset involved Trinidad who were sunk by two first-half goals from Bermuda striker John Nusum.

Southampton's Stern John replied for the Soca Warriors, who are led by former Colombia coach Francisco Maturana.

Two players were sent off as Panama beat El Salvador 1-0 at home and Colombian-based Luis Tejada scored the only goal after 21 minutes.

Panama's Juan Perez was dismissed in the 61st minute at the rain-soaked Rod Carew baseball stadium and El Salvador's Manuel Salazar followed in the 90th minute.

The only goalless draw was in Port-au-Prince where Haiti were held by Netherlands Antilles.

Reuters