Soccer match between Cuban, NYC teams fosters détente
HAVANA -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has been sidelined with a broken leg, and lead negotiator in the U.S.-Cuba talks Roberta Jacobson has been nominated Ambassador to Mexico.
Those two incidents could delay the long-anticipated opening of an American embassy in the Cuban capital, but in this baseball-mad nation, the news Tuesday was all about the loss 4 - 1 of the Cuban National Soccer Team to the New York Cosmos.
It was a loss sweetened for locals by the presence on the rain-pelted field of former Real Madrid star Raul Gonzalez, and in the stands of Brazilian great and Cosmos honorary president Pele.
The New York Cosmos are the first professional team to play in Cuba since Presidents Obama and Castro stunned the world with their December 17th announcement of the decision to reestablish diplomatic relations on the ashes of 54 years of misunderstandings and hostility.
Inevitably, Tuesday's match was described as sports diplomacy to marshal bilateral relations along a dangerous road.
Cuban sports officials have described the friendly match as a step along the path to improved relations, a position echoed by visiting Cosmos team members who smartly sidestepped all attempts by the media to force them into political declarations and limited themselves to describing their presence here as a "privilege."
The match itself was anti-climactic. The Cosmos trounced the Cuban players scoring four goals in the first half. The Cubans only rallied to score one goal at the beginning of the second and then displayed their shortcomings by missing a number of subsequent opportunities to come out from behind.
Local TV commentators noted the Cuban team was "not a pretty sight to watch" as the match was broadcast live across the island.
Cuba has not had a team in the World Cup since 1938 but soccer has been growing in popularity in the last decade or so with empty lots and even less trafficked streets becoming the scene of teens and young men playing minus the appropriate footwear and with often semi deflated balls.
Seats were filled in the roofed section of Pedro Marrero stadium where the match was held, but the open-air sections of the nearly 30,000 seat arena were empty under gray skies and relentless rain.
Still, those who were there, some of whom waved both countries' flags, cheered feverishly when Pele appeared in the stands. For Gonzalez, the game represented more exchanges to come, more opening, more opportunities.
As Pele told Cuban TV, the game Tuesday represented much more than a sports event, it signaled the historic rapprochement between Cuba and the United States.