For the love of soccer...!

Last night’s clash in Havana must be the most surreal game the US has played in a while.

It was not just the faulty stadium electrics, which bathed the field in a ghostly half-light before giving out altogether a few minutes before the final whistle.

Nor was it the lack of perimeter advertising, the first time I have seen that televised soccer since the 1966 World Cup Final.

The abiding image was when the TV editor kept cutting to the handful of US fans who had braved the blockade to cheer on their nation. With stars and stripes handkerchiefs covering their identity but proclaiming their nationality, they took a new take on America’s Most Wanted.

The last time fans have been forced to don headgear was when Ireland played Iran in a World Cup playoff in 2002 and traveling female fans in Teheran had to cover up.

Bravo, I say to those famous five in Havana. ‘No Politics, Only Football’ proclaimed a US fans’ banner at the Korea clash in World Cup 2002.

While every dollar we spend is a political statement of some sort, what harm was really done in travelling to watch a game? My friend Grant Wahl spoke to these US rebels in Havana, and guess what, they had come for the soccer. “I can’t really afford this trip right now,” explained one of them. “I’ve got two little kids at home. But it’s the U.S. v Cuba in Cuba. So to me it just has to be done.”

Quite so. Back in 2000, the night before a UEFA Cup semi-final in Istanbul, two Leeds fans were murdered by Turkish hooligans.

The English club hastily ordered its remaining supporters to fly home and forget the match, but there were still some diehards who insisted on getting in, not, as they explained for the cameras, because they wanted to exact revenge, but because they had sworn they would never miss a Leeds game for the rest of their lives.

Having visited Cuba myself, I would only say there can be no justification for Castro’s government preventing its citizens from leaving the island, and that the rigid system has forced many people into swindling tourists as a part-time job.

On the flip side, the US embargo gives Castro a convenient scapegoat for his failings, and seems counter-productive when China is being ‘de-communized’ by global trade.

Havana in 1947, the date of the last US soccer visit, would have felt much more like home than it did yesterday. The Cuban capital was once a decadent playboys’ paradise of bars and clubs, many run by American mobsters. This Babylonian atmosphere in part led to the 1953-‘59 revolution, and a communist regime still in place today.

Anyone into classic American cars, like Marcus Hahnemann for instance, would love the parade of 1950s Chevvies, Buicks, Pontiacs et al. still stuttering around Havana.

Cuba is still a shock to the westerner. The first thing the US boys will have noticed is the ubiquitous propaganda for the billboards promoting communism system. On the road from the airport to their hotel they will have surely seen the and the heroes of 1959 – most famously of course Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. The anti-American murals and posters will have left them feeling less comfortable, I would imagine.

There is no advertising in the country. Nor is there any press beyond propaganda sheets of the government. Granma has English editions left in most hotels, which would have made interesting reading for any of the US party, as it is filled with pro-Castro and anti-US news.

Most Cubans have no access to foreign TV and the (dial-up) internet exists basically for tourists – only this year were locals permitted to won computers. Order a Coke and you will get TuKola – in red and white cans like the original, and tasting the same, but 100% Cuban. The best-selling beer Bucanero is a country mile ahead of Bud I must say.

As Landon Donovan and Bob Bradley confirmed to the press, Cubans are warm and friendly and it is hard to find anti-American sentiment among those you meet. Quite the opposite, most of them want to get out and see the US, if not the world, but cannot; all they can do is talk to the tourists.

This was probably the most politically-colored US game since the Iran clash at France ’98. I was in the Stade Gerland in Lyon that night and it felt more like an Iranian opposition rally.

Last night in the Estadio Pedro Marrero, the mood was somewhat softer. The 17,000-seater looked half full and with a running track to boot, the atmosphere was never going to be as charged as the skies over Cuba, as Hurricane Ike approaches. The grass was long, the pitch hard and the stadium rickety, a bit like San Jose State then.

Plus, as in the US, soccer is not top dog on the island. Far more Cubans, Castro included, prefer baseball to the Beautiful Game. When their best players cannot play for overseas clubs, Cuba will always struggle to compete in CONCACAF.

61 years is too long a time for the US not to have played in Havana. I understand the grievances of Cuban exiles, but isolating a problem is not going to make it go away. We should have more soccer, baseball and cultural exchanges in general with Cuba until a new generation comes to power and changes the system, as will happen.

How ironic there were two sets of fans in the stadium last night both with travel restrictions from their respective countries. How great it would have been if all US fans had been allowed to attend legally, and Cuban fans allowed to come to America in return.

It’s not about politics at the end of the day –it’s about the love of soccer.

- Sean O'Conor