Last update 6 April, 2024 by Alberto Llopis
Cuba, one country of eleven million inhabitants framed in the Caribbean Sea. Its shores just separate them 90 miles of Florida. The Communist Island by Antonomasia. The place where everyone dreams of going to visit at least one place in life. The last Latin American European redoubt and the last of the territories of this same nature in making its independence effective already in 1902.
Cradle of sex and non -sexual tourism, music cradle, of medicine, It is also a good place to practice sports, especially if one is baseball or boxing, majority sports next to athletics. And football? What happens to him? Has he penetrated the island or has it remained on the sidelines? Well then, In Cuba, Although it seems a lie, there is and is booming.
Cuba is not a country that is a football power. Enough to say that only a World Cup went once and it was in 1938 When it fell in the quarterfinals 8-0 Before Sweden after winning Romania in the round of 16. Out of there nothing. Just two participations in the Gold Cup in 2003 and in 2013 And a victory in the Caribbean Cup, minor tournament composed of countries in the area. Also two Olympic participations with two quarterfinals.
However and how can you get glimpsed, slowly, Cuba begins to resurge in world football. He has done so qualifying for the last U-20 World and has done so with the aforementioned victory in the Caribbean Cup or the quarterfinals in the Gold Cup. But above all it does in the streets, where children begin to improvise street matches instead of launches with the bat, or on television, where state chains do not stop offering the main international leagues in the world, increasingly in a row among the population.
It is difficult for them to become a world power, maximum when there is no great figure beyond Marcel Hernández, The man who gave the triumph in the last Caribbean Cup and when his players barely leave the island, But the jump begins to be great. There is a league of more than 100 years (It started in 1912) Composed of eight teams where Real Iberia, Villa Clara and Asturian youth are the big flagships. Also a soccer association founded on 1924, Thirteen years before playing the first football game on the island, thanks to the arrival of British.
Maybe, The great push must come from outside. In that sense, There is a dream, an illusion that Real Madrid returns to Cuba more than 50 years after he did last. It is a popular request that undoubtedly, It would be the definitive jump for football to be consolidated as mass sport, Also in Cuba. A white club that also had Chus Alonso in its ranks, The possibly more famous Cuban footballer in the world.