First it stormed living rooms via television, then it took the streets, where joyous shouts of “gooooaaal” have gradually replaced the bellowed “strike.”
In the battle for the hearts and minds of Cuban kids, soccer is threatening to topple baseball as the nation’s most popular sport.
“Soccer here was on the floor and now it’s heading to the top as the national sport,” said a resigned Humberto Nicolas Reyes, who has coached young baseball hopefuls for 40 years.
Photo: AFP
Reyes is proud of his association with MLB stars such as Yonder Alonso and Alex Sanchez, players he coached as young boys, but crouching down to show a kid how to gather a ball in his glove during a recent practice, he said: “Almost everyone has gone over to football.”
Observers say the trend is gathering pace, even as baseball is set to return to the Olympics in Tokyo 2020 following a 12-year absence.
Cuba can point to three Olympic titles and 25 World Championships in baseball, but on the streets, soccer is the new champ.
“Today the kids and young people are more inclined to take up football than to take up baseball,” Cuba’s national soccer team coach Raul Mederos said as he watched players training.
Once a rarity, it is become common for people to get up in the early hours to watch a televised European game or to see kids playing street soccer wearing shirts bearing the names of Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo.
“We play everywhere we can,” sports student Alejandro Izquierdo said as young people played an evening practice game under a glowing neon mural of Che Guevara.
Izquierdo said he dreams of Cuba qualifying for the World Cup finals, something they have managed only once, in France in 1938.
TV has played a major role in Cuba’s newfound fervor for soccer.
“There are eight baseball games being played at 2pm and they don’t air any of those games. Instead we’ll see Barcelona’s match on the TV,” said Eduardo Medina, a 65-year-old fan.
“What does that tell you? That football is slowly squeezing it out,” Medina said, watching from the stands at Estadio Latinamericano — the cathedral of Cuban baseball — where La Habana was taking on Las Tunas from the east of the island in a league game.
Cuban TV first broadcast recorded World Cup matches from Spain 1982, progressing to live matches from USA 1994.
It now broadcasts matches from Europe’s big leagues, as well as the Champions League.
Contrast that with baseball coverage: State television has aired MLB games only since 2013 — and then only those that do not include Cuban players.
They were still considered “deserters” until recently, although there are tentative signs that the official tone is changing. Last year, for the first time, the TV showed recorded World Series games, which featured Cuban players — but this year the fans were left wanting once again when it was not broadcast.
“These things have been lacerating baseball fans in Cuba,” said Pablo Diaz, a 32-year-old fan.
The quality of Cuban baseball has suffered and the national team has not won a meaningful event since the 2006 Intercontinental Cup.
At the grassroots level, costs can quickly add up. A baseball glove costs the same as a soccer ball, about US$30 — equivalent to a month’s salary — and a team needs nine gloves, in addition to bats and balls. Soccer is cheap by comparison.
However, Cuba’s baseball authorities are not taking soccer’s challenge lying down. Eyes firmly set on qualifying for Tokyo, they have modified its championships structure to make it more competitive and have begun remodeling its main stadiums.
Soccer clubs have a growing membership of 25,000 members, while 46,000 are registered with baseball clubs, official figures showed.
“Baseball is the national sport and no one is going to change that,” Mederos said, but added that “we have to learn how to coexist with baseball,” as is the case in Venezuela and Panama.
Hit by defections and a lack of international competition, the Cuban national soccer team has been waning since 2004, when they drew home and away with Costa Rica, the Caribbean’s best team.
However, as they prepare to participate in the US Gold Cup next year, there are signs that attitudes are beginning to change among Cuba’s sports administrators.
The Cuban Sports Institute is gradually opening the door to athletes who emigrated and remain active, and no longer uses words like “traitor” or “deserter” when referring to exiled players.
For the first time, the institute has given approval for Mederos to include foreign-based players in the national team.
Other sports are looking on with interest, baseball among them, at a move that could eventually open the way for the rehabilitation of some of the nation’s other sporting exiles.
“We’re taking positive steps,” Mederos said.
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