SOCCER
Cuban player defects
Osvaldo Alonso left the Cuban national team while in Houston for the
Gold Cup and the 21-year-old then came to Miami.
BY JORGE EBRO
jebro@elnuevoherald.com
Surrounded by the immensity of a shopping mall in Houston, Osvaldo
Alonso felt for a moment like the loneliest man in the world. But also
perhaps the luckiest.
Shortly before a Gold Cup game June 13, the leaders of the Cuban soccer
team had permitted the players to make a few purchases to take back to
the island. Unknowingly, they also gave Alonso, a Pinar del Rio native,
the opportunity he wanted.
''At first, I acted like all the others, showing interest in what I was
going to buy,'' he said. ``Little by little, I separated from the group
and walked through a door onto the street. I never looked back.''
Moments later, Alonso borrowed a cellphone from someone ''who looked
Latin'' and phoned a friend, who told him to go to the Greyhound bus
station and buy a ticket for Miami.
Back in Houston remained his teammates, who later lost their game 5-0
against Honduras. And in Cuba remained his entire family, whom he won't
see again for a while. How long, he doesn't know.
''It was not easy to make a decision like that, but I had thought about
it a lot,'' Alonso said. ``It wasn't something spontaneous. I wanted to
give my career a new direction. In my country, I had achieved what I had
set out to do.''
Only 21 years old, Alonso -- whose father was a member of the Cuban
soccer team in the 1980s -- was one of the youngest athletes to earn a
spot with the national team.
But, as it happens to most Cuban athletes, he believed he had fulfilled
his potential, particularly because he knew the fate of other Cubans who
had decided to find new horizons.
''In Cuba, I had the chance to see a newspaper report about [Michael]
Galindo,'' said Alonso, referring to the forward for Chivas USA in the
MLS who defected during the 2005 Gold Cup.
''I was very happy to learn that he had found a place in the main league
here, and that encouraged me,'' Alonso said.
Something similar happened to Lester Moré, one of Cuba's highest
scorers, who quit the national team a few days before Alonso. At the
time, the team was in New Jersey, where it played the first two games in
the tournament.
In an action very similar to Alonso's, Moré, 29, took a taxi and then a
bus to Miami, hoping to make his way into the MLS. In Cuba, he played
for Ciego de Avila.
''I want to continue my career as an athlete. It's what I like and it's
what I came here to do,'' Moré said in Miami.
``I'm very hopeful, because other compatriots have succeeded and made
their dreams come true.''
This is not the first time that Cuban soccer players defect during a
CONCACAF tournament. Rey Angel Martínez and Alberto Delgado stayed in
the U.S. in January 2000 and now play for teams in the United Soccer
Leagues.
''I know what they feel because I experienced it myself during the 2005
Gold Cup,'' Galindo said after learning about Alonso's and Moré's
decision. ``I only want to wish them the best of luck, and may they
achieve their dreams.''
To Alonso, the worst is behind. Now, he looks at life in two directions.
''I want to succeed in the MLS, or wherever my talent and efforts take
me, but I don't want to disregard other aspects that will be important
in my future life,'' he said. ``I would also like to study, to become a
useful person, because I know that there is life after soccer.''
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