Ariel B. Coya

ON December 11, Cuban football celebrated its centenary and much has been said recently about that first game played on Palatino field between Hatuey and the Rovers – the former winning with a single goal from team captain Jack Orr.

But I am among those who think that the past, more than anything else, serves to better understand current problems and, perhaps, with a bit of common sense, can help make things better in the future. Thus, I don’t pay much attention to the record book and I’ll beg forgiveness before saying that, given what we’ve seen over these past 100 years of football in Cuba, the truth is that it’s hard to celebrate the anniversary with the enthusiasm it deserves.

This may sound harsh, but it’s true. In Cuba, you see it all the time, there’s lots of talk and we watch more football than ever before but the national teams, playing here in our neighborhoods, are practically unknown. Cuban football’s traditions, history, its rites and legends are forgotten or live in anonymity, more than anything else.

Those of us in the press are surely somewhat to blame, since we often fail to cover Cuban football events as we should.

There are other causes, however, that go beyond our responsibility, such as, for example, limited access to information. Things could be done better, for starters, in the organization of football, beginning with the National Championship, which under no circumstances should amount to a bureaucratic challenge or a phantom competition.

The calendar should not be arbitrarily changed to avoid the sudden cancellations that tend to occur in the months of December and January. Last year’s season was interrupted not just once, but two times and the final wasn’t even broadcast on television.

In any event, I don’t object to the broadcasting of up to four programs a week devoted to international football. On the contrary, because thanks to programs like Gol, the sport enjoys unprecedented popularity within the country. However, if Cuba competes in a tournament like the Gold Cup, it should be broadcast, even if our team’s performance is abysmal. And our players should not be taking the day off when FIFA competitions are scheduled, despite our financial limitations, since facing other nations’ teams is precisely what we most need, in order to evaluate our strengths and see where we stand, before we get another clubbing.

A revealing fact, in this context, is that a Cuban team has not faced a European rival since 1988 when we tied Albania 0-0 and, since then, we’ve only played teams from other federations beyond CONCACAF five times: Cameroon (1997), South Korea (2002), plus Venezuela and Chile (2007).

In reality, what is needed is better development of the human resources we have on hand. It’s not a question of hiring a foreign coach to come up with overnight success, but rather of taking advantage of the friends we have who are willing to help us – and there are more than a few – to share their experience in day-to-day training, as opposed to special conferences or seminars, or even better, in our work developing talent.

Football’s massive popularity seen in our streets and parks is wasted if it is not organized and developed. Work in the neighborhoods is fundamental because football is not being developed and it will never be developed in a lab. It is a team sport, in which individuality matters, but requires 11 players to work as a unit.

We have talent, as was seen in the Guadalajara Pan Americans, but we need to learn how to strengthen it and, above all, we need to get out onto the streets, where so many children are playing, to find it. We should never forget that Maradona, like so many other greats, was discovered playing barefoot in a vacant lot.

We must also recognize that, even if we overcome these obstacles, success doesn’t come quickly; even doing things well, it takes time for such efforts to bear fruit. We must toss out the tendency to focus solely on results and have patience, working purposefully and diligently.

And by the way, this might be a good time to debunk a few myths, such as the assertion that football doesn’t flourish in baseball countries. Or that Cubans don’t have it in our blood. Please… Remember that the legendary Real Madrid player of the 1960’s, Santiago Bernabeu, had a mother from Camagüey.