Cuban soccer steps to plate

But baseball is king on the island

It's drill time for American Eddie Johnson during practice in Havana in preparation for tonight's World Cup match. (Javier galeano/Associated Press)

HAVANA - "We like futbol," said Eduardo, a taxi driver working the old Parque Central district. "We are just not very good at it."

Cuba is a baseball country, and if it weren't for the famed national team and the ultra-competitive national league, boxing, and perhaps volleyball would win the hearts of the island's 11.3 million citizens. Unlike most of Latin America, Cuba has never truly embraced soccer, and government neglect has left the program far behind Caribbean adversaries Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.

There are few indications around this historic capital city that tonight, on the western edge of the metropolitan area, a World Cup qualifying match will be played between Cuba and the United States, the Americans' first senior national team visit in 61 years.

Tucked in the back of Thursday's Granma, an eight-page tabloid and the official Communist Party newspaper, the sports page comprised an international track and field roundup, a story about the Paralympics in China, and five paragraphs about the soccer qualifier.

The window of a downtown sporting goods store displayed baseball jerseys and caps of the national team and the popular Havana-based ballclub Industriales, but no soccer. The only clear signs of the sport are children playing in dusty parks, and South American and European tourists displaying their allegiance.

For tonight's match, fans have been "invited" by the government to attend for free. Others, an official said, will be able to buy tickets for two pesos ($2.20).

Cubans do follow soccer, particularly big European teams such as Real Madrid and Manchester United, and World Cup matches are televised live every four years. Enthusiasm for the local product, though, is low.

"The highest priority is given to baseball in terms of government resources," said Maykel Galindo, a forward for MLS's Chivas USA who was among a dozen soccer players to defect to the United States the past six years and no longer plays for the national team. "Generally they like to invest in sports where Cuba can compete at a high international level, such as the Olympics. Kids will always say that their favorite sports hero is a baseball player, since that is what they are most exposed to. Many of them are dedicated to the bat and the ball, so that's what the country develops most."

Cuba's soccer history is not completely bare. The team was entered into the third World Cup, in 1938, and tied and defeated Romania before getting thumped by Sweden, 8-0, in the worst loss in program history. The Leones del Caribe, as the team is known, have qualified five of the past six times for the Gold Cup, a regional championship, and advanced to the quarterfinals in 2003.

This year began with a troubling 4-3 road victory over tiny Antigua and Barbuda and a 4-0 win in the return leg, allowing Cuba to advance. In the first of six semifinal-round matches, the Cubans lost at home to Trinidad and Tobago, 3-1.

The US team has not been here since July 1947 for a 5-2 exhibition victory. The teams played each other in two World Cup qualifiers in Mexico City two years later and have met four times in the Gold Cup at US venues the past 10 years, the Americans winning all four by a combined score of 13-1.

A young US squad was sent here for the 1991 Pan-American Games and beat Cuba, 2-1, en route to the championship.

The national teams will meet again Oct. 11 at RFK Stadium in Washington.

"To beat the United States is going to be difficult," Cuba coach Reinhold Fanz told Granma, "but not impossible. We are going to need the support of all the public."

Fanz, 54, was recruited two years ago from his native Germany, where he enjoyed a 10-year career as a midfielder before turning to coaching. In Cuba, he does not have much to work with. Every national team player competes domestically in a ragtag league and the program has been decimated by defections. To prepare for the qualifiers, Fanz took the team to Germany for a series of exhibitions and experienced mixed results.

For every step forward Cuba has taken on the field in recent years, the departure of players has been a step back.

Rey Angel Martinez and Alberto Delgado were the first to leave, during the 2002 Gold Cup in Los Angeles. Both ended up playing for MLS's Colorado Rapids.

After defections by Galindo in Seattle in 2005 and two others in Houston last year, seven players from the under-23 national team walked away from their hotel in Tampa last spring during the Olympic qualifying tournament and did not return. Despite having only 10 eligible players for a game against Honduras, the Cubans decided to play on and kept the game scoreless into the second half before enduring a 2-0 loss.

Players leave Cuba "because they want to make something out of their lives," said Galindo, one of MLS's top forwards last year with 12 goals and five assists but sidelined much of this season with injuries. "They are in search of the dream of playing soccer at a professional level and they know that Cuba will not offer them that."

US vs. Cuba
What: World Cup qualifier.
When: Tonight, 8.
Where: Estadio Pedro Marrero, Havana.
TV: ESPN Classic, Galavision