Missing Cuban soccer players crossed border, U.S. official says

Published 18 minutes ago
Andrew Livingstone
Staff Reporter

Cuban national soccer players who disappeared Thursday, a day before their scheduled World Cup qualifier match against Canada in Toronto, crossed the border the same evening they went missing, a U.S. official has confirmed.

A source with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency confirmed reports that at least three players did in fact attempt to cross the Canada-U.S. border Thursday and were being held.

How the players managed to get to the border crossing at Niagara Falls, where they crossed, is unclear.

The Cuban squad was in Toronto to play Canada’s national men’s soccer team as part of a 2014 World Cup qualifying round when at least three players disappeared. A fourth was thought to have left, but Cuban head coach Alexander Gonzalez confirmed the fourth player fell ill and didn’t play, but wouldn’t comment further on the issue.

The loss of four players left the Cuban team with the minimum 11 players to field a team. Canada won the match 3-0.

A spokesperson for FIFA — the governing body of international soccer — confirmed in an email that players had defected on Thursday, one day before the scheduled game in Toronto.

This latest defection of Cuban soccer players from elite men’s teams from the Communist nation is one in a long line of players leaving teams for the “American Dream” as Gonzalez called it after the game Friday night.

In March 2008, after an Olympic qualifying match between Cuba’s Under-23 national men’s team and the United States in Tampa, Fla., at least five players defected.

Goalkeeper Jose Manuel Miranda, defender Erlys Garcia Baro, midfielder Yordany Alvarez, defender Loanni Prieto and team captain Yenier Bermudez slipped out of their Tampa hotel, according to local media reports.

Canada also has some history when it comes to Cuban athletes defecting during international sporting events.

During the 1999 Pan-Am Games in Winnipeg, seven athletes sought asylum during the event, including one soccer player, goalkeeper Rodney Valdes, according to an Associated Press report.

A member of the men’s 4 x 100 relay team, a female gymnast, Abel Juncosa Reyes, a pistol shooter, and a softball coach all sought to defect. A reporter with Radio Rebelde, Lisette Cepero, also defected.

Last January, two Cuban women’s soccer players defected to the U.S. after a match in Vancouver against Canada’s women’s squad.

Yisel Rodriguez and Yezenia Gallardo fled to the U.S. border from Vancouver after their match and Rodriguez told ESPN they arrived at the border without their passports, which were being held by the Cuban delegation travelling with the players. She was able to prove her identity by showing a Cuban Identity Card which she hid in her shoe.

After the game on Friday, Gonzalez lamented the departures of the missing players.

“As with any Cuban sport team that travels around the world, they’re all chasing the American dream,” he said. “And it’s difficult to try to keep the team together . . . Obviously it’s a difficult situation for the team and it’s tough for me to talk about it.”

Missing Cuban soccer players crossed border, U.S. official says - thestar.com