The moment was loaded with sentiment. For the first time in nearly a decade, the soccer-mad boy who followed his dream was performing before the father he left behind. Osvaldo Alonso, the combative Seattle Sounders midfielder, reunited with Osvaldo Sr, a one-time striker. Ozzie, the Cuban defector, Osvaldo Sr, the visitor and beneficiary of thawing US-Cuban relations. There was an embrace for the cameras, and a singalong with the Sounders faithful.
As a spectacle, it made for good public relations – perhaps even a propaganda coup. But behind the sentiment lies a very real story of woe for the aspiring Cuban soccer star, one bedevilled not only by politics but also stereotype. Legion are the tales of Cuba’s baseball prospects who scurried north, hook or by crook, in search of fame and fortune. The same journey for a soccer player is rare though. Unlike baseball stars, the lowly soccer player doesn’t chase the lure of untold millions. Nor do they tend to attract serious scrutiny. They are the pauper to the baseballer’s prince, an afterthought in a Cuba fixated on the ballpark. More often than not, they are the preserve of the minor leagues in the US, Alonso the exception rather than the rule.
At home, the façade of communism continues to reign. Poverty is rife. Opportunities seldom sprout, particularly in the footballing sphere. Osvaldo Jr is the most high-profile – and perhaps most successful – Cuban player to defect in recent times. He cut loose from the Cuban national team camp in Houston during the Gold Cup in 2007 not long after team-mate Lester Moré had done the same in New Jersey. There were sporadic defections of players before, notes Cuban soccer expert Mario Lara. But a minor flood followed Alonso and Moré, the largest contingent coming last year.
A hint of the latent talent pool in Cuba might have been visible earlier in the form of the forward Maykel Galindo, who proved a minor success after defecting in 2005. But it was with Alonso that the potential reached a peak. It did not come easily, however. Trials at MLS clubs came and went. He was forced to drop a level. And it was here something curious began to take shape. Alongside Moré he represented the beginnings of what has grown into a kind of accidental colony, an incubator even, of Cuban soccer talent.
The location? The unlikely locale of Charleston, South Carolina. Not long after Alonso and Moré defected, a friendly face emerged in the city. Where others might have scoffed at the prospect of a Cuban soccer player, Mike Anhaeuser, head coach of the USL’s Charleston Battery, registered an interest in the raw talent emerging out of Cuba.
Most Cuban defectors gravitate toward familiar turf in Miami. The soccer player is no different. So the trail north was not an obvious one. Nor was there a deliberate ploy at Charleston to act as a sanctuary. Ability and need were the chief concerns. If they were good enough and there was an obvious hole in the roster, they might expect a contract. So the first, Moré, arrived in 2008 via an otherwise orthodox route: on recommendation. Then another, Alonso, followed. It worked out, Anhaeuser says. “The Cuban players go to places where they have somebody. At first, we wanted two because they knew each other and it would make them comfortable.” Now, he says, “it’s more of a flood. We’ve had seven or eight come through. We can’t sign them all – you need players at certain positions that we don’t have – but Charleston is a place that they know about, because they talk.”
Since Moré and Alonso, Charleston have played host no fewer than seven Cuban players up to the end of the 2015 season. Last year, Anhaeuser’s side featured four, with the 46-year-old looking to add even more for the 2016 campaign. Three recent mainstays defected together in October 2012, leaving behind the Cuban national team after a World Cup qualifier in Toronto. They are goalkeeper Odisnel Cooper, attacking midfielder Maikel Chang and attacker Heviel Cordoves, with all three expected back for the 2016 campaign. Veteran striker Ariel Martinez, 29, joined them briefly after defecting during last year’s Gold Cup, turning out once after his paperwork was finalized.
Being taken seriously as a Cuban soccer player is not easy. The spectre of baseball and boxing doesn’t help, and the domestic league is amateur. At club level, teams no longer participate in continental competition. Anhaeuser looks past the established shibboleth.
“It’s difficult because the defections have to absolutely hurt the national team when they play in America. Going in, the first game they do well then two or three are gone. The coach has to change and it might be two or three of their better players. The level though is comparable to other Caribbean countries.
“[Cuban players] are a little different; they have a little flair but they also have a work rate. They all have an ability to play but they’re changing styles. One thing they’ve got to get used to is training. Down there it is not a professional league. The level of commitment is there for the national team but not necessarily for the league because it’s still amateur and they don’t push every day.”
Lara, also Cuban-born, has become a de facto agent for the Cuban players. By day an x-ray technician in Miami, he spends a good deal of time shopping the latest defectors around US clubs. It can be slim pickings. Often, he says, his pitches fall on deaf ears, the moment he reveals that the player he just described is Cuban the dialogue ends.
For the players themselves, there is the need to help impoverished families back home. But also a desire to find out if they can survive week-in, week-out against a better standard of player. For Cordoves, now 26, the decision to defect was made amid a feeling he was entering “last chance” territory. In Cuba, he received pay of just $10 to $15 a month. He yearned to play at a higher level, to go professional, to test himself after the calm waters of the amateur league back in Cuba.
He has struggled at times, Charleston noting in his club bio he arrived physically week owing to an impoverished upbringing, and injuries ravaged his 2015 campaign. But he has enjoyed purple patches and goal gluts. And he still thinks he can push on a level.
“Mike Anhaeuser is one of the coaches from the leagues who gave the first opportunities to Cuban players,” says Cordoves, who had not even heard of the club until he defected. “Now it’s becoming a tradition. It’s important because they open the gates for us.”
Chang, another player with great potential, has a similar tale to tell. The 24-year-old toiled in his first season. He was 21, on his own and homesick. Since then, he has blossomed into one of the Battery’s most potent attacking options. He wants to help his family financially but craves a greater test. “At youth level, Cuba may face other national teams without problem but it is not the same in the upper categories,” he says. “Cuban players do not have the same experience that players from other countries have. Most of them play at professional clubs and in competitive leagues. We do not.”
Meanwhile, the third of the Cuban mainstays at Charleston, keeper Cooper, 23, might be the pick of the litter. Considered one of the USL’s top goalkeepers, he is attracting the most interest from bigger clubs. Together, the one regret that seems common to most of the players who have defected is their exclusion, apparently in perpetuity, from the national team. Warming relations between Cuba and the United States notwithstanding, the imperatives of making the most of a short career takes precedence.
Cuban soccer reached its zenith in 1938 when the nation went to the World Cup for the first and only time. But there are recent signs of improvement. The promise of increasing engagement with the outside world means professionalism may follow in the medium- to long-term. And for all the heavy defeats, Cuba has reached the quarter-finals of the last two Gold Cups.
Lara senses soccer is gaining in popularity in Cuba. “There are coaches who want to go and train in Cuba. As it opens up, maybe five, seven years on, they will be pretty strong.” Defectors-turned-pros, should they ever get to return to the national fold, too, may raise the bar.
That’s providing Cuba and the US continue to improve relations. If the wave of defections shows anything, it is that Cuban players are in a hurry to move on up.
View all comments >