Cuban footballers dreaming
of 2010 World Cup

BY ANNE-MARIE GARCIA —Special for Granma International—

WITH their loyalties divided between Argentina, Brazil and Italy, members of Cuba’s national football team haven’t missed a single World cup match and are dreaming of the 2010 tournament.

"If Trinidad and Tobago and Costa Rica qualified, why can’t we?" asked Odelín Molina, the island’s captain. Molina hasn’t missed a match since the start of this World Cup in which Italy has been his favorite team. "I love their strong, defensive play and goalie Buffon is a star."

Players on the Cuban team train on a daily basis at Havana’s Pedro Marrero stadium and watch the World Cup matches that have been broadcast live on Cuban television since the end of the group stage.

"I felt my a tug on my heartstrings when I saw Trinidad & Tobago and Costa Rica, against whom we fought tooth and nail. We beat Trinidad & Tobago on the last two occasions that we played them," stressed Molina. He recalled that in the World Cup qualifiers, Costa Rica knocked out Cuba, without beating them, drawing 2-2 in Havana and 1-1 in San José.

Since the start of the World Cup, the streets of the Cuban capital have been filled with young and old alike, who have traded in their baseball bats and gloves to kick around a football.

But the soccer fever that grips the island every four years with the start of each World Cup gradually abates little by little as the event draws to a close and the dreams born of the genius of Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Crespo, Figo or Zindane, to mention just a few, gradually fade away.

Dany Quintero is Cuba’s reserve goalkeeper and also admires the skill of Italian Buffon. Wingers Pedro Faiffe, Reinier Alcántara and Alain Cervantes are fans of Brazil, their beautiful game, the touches on the ball and the genius of the team’s stars.

Whilst Yordanis Server and Osvaldo Alonson support Argentina and their style of attacking play.

Cuba finished eleventh in the 2004 Olympic Games and is the second strongest country on the American continent, after the United States, with respect to sports, but has never achieved results in competitive soccer tournaments.

José Ramón Fernández, president of the Cuban Olympic Committee, recently affirmed that the sports authorities intend to capitalize on the passion aroused by the World Cup in Germany to "work intensively to consolidate and encourage interest in soccer" throughout the island.

Fernández, who is also vice president of the Council of Ministers, recalled that before baseball, soccer was the island’s passion in the 1920s and 30s.

"It’s not about introducing something new, but recovering something that’s been forgotten, that can be encouraged easily, that promotes activity amongst everyone, independently of their love of baseball," commented Fernández.

However, Fernandez stated that the most important thing is not to think about "a team representing Cuba in the World Cup, but of thousands of people knocking a ball about in every corner, because that’s where champions are found, in the same way as baseball."

The Cuban Football Association has announced that it is about to distribute balls donated by the Spanish club Getafe throughout the island.

Besides that, nine Cuban trainers and coaches are attending the World Cup in Germany at the invitation of the team from Bonn. In August, the Cuban team is to make a 21-day tour of Germany.

Molina, the experienced 32-year-old Cuban captain, emphasized that "working on the basis of mass participation and confronting top teams without the fear of them thrashing us are the secrets to growing as a team."

Faiffe, Alcantara and Cervantes affirmed that Cuba will be in South Africa in 2010.

"We were so close during the last World Cup qualifiers and it was very sad because if we had made it, we would have provided the boost needed for  soccer to take off on the island," he lamented.