Sport in Cuba has become a social science as or more difficult to understand that the very theory of relativity, by Albert Einstein. On how to decipher it, promote it and develop it, specifically in football, I had the pleasure of talking with Raul Gonzalez Triana, U-20 national team technical director. A down to earth guy, kind, talkative, witty, jovial, knowing how much history there is in the Cuban soccer environment, from the alpha to the omega, desperate lover of his profession , forminggenerations, that is Triana, the man who led Cuba for the first time to a U-20 World Cup in its history, the guy who opened, without a second thought, the door of room 409 of the Polat RenaissanceHotel in the wonderful Turkish city of Istanbul. The interview came easy, I have to admit, and not even the most sensitive of topics conspired against it. Triana did not keep secrets though he demanded, of course, discretion and tact in severalpoints, because "I know how it works," he said. There were many topics to tackle. My interests were many, some for some publication, and others for another. Which is the most important of all? The history, the importance, of course. But certainly there were two appointments with history: one very important for sports, the World Cup qualifying, and other political and social -how to turn qualification into a everyday reality, and not a sporadic one as it happened on this occasion. Then I turned the guns around for the second option. I could not betray myself. I focused the thread to the enigmatic opening phenomenon these days sports are going through...

A few days ago I interviewed the Cuban soccer player Maykel Reyes, the number 9, who is considered by many as the best striker in the country at the U-20 category, and in the midst of the talk I asked for his goals in life, quixotic or not, and I confess I was taken aback with his answers. The boy is a crack, he forced me to redirect the questionnaire and open the spectrum to be at his height. A lanky, athletic, and fast boy, with extraordinary qualities to play outside the opposite box and without the ball (something very few understand in Cuba due to the meager existing soccer culture), he is an innate striker who has also the quality of assisting his teammates when in better position than his. Maykel Reyes is the reference of the Cuban squad involved today in the 19th U-20 World Cup in Turkey. Beyond that tournament, to which Cuba qualified for the first time in history in this category, the impact occurred when Reyes told me, to my utter surprise: "I want to be a world elite player, I would like to share the dressing room in Barcelona with Messi and Neymar (most...

The news flies through the streets of Cuba: the national baseball opened to professionalism by inserting three elite active players in the summer Mexican League, three men of great experience and level which certainly will make great ​​contributions to the team they will play for: The Piratas de Campeche. Third baseman Michel Enriquez, Olympic champion in Athens 2004 and runner-up in the I World Classic in 2006, the slugger Alfredo Despaigne, home run record holder for Cuban Series with 36, and Yordanis Samon, known as the 'Golden Bomber', are the chosen ones to open the way to the professional baseball. It's a great opportunity to come and play here in Mexico and show Cuban Baseball level in a professional league as competitive as this. The welcome was great, now it is the turn hospitality into good results in the field, they said in the La Jugada Perfecta show of the Mexican TV channel Telemar, directed and hosted by journalist Héctor Villar. During the space all strongly endorsed the decision of the Cuban government to allow gradual insertion of players in foreign leagues because, they said, will improve from every point Cuban baseball, both technically, tactically and conceptually. There are 16 teams...

Farewell to the illusion. Cuba took leave of the World Classic III through the back door. Millions of fans suffered another defeat of Cuban baseball, the nth since 2005. It is now the Dutch the Caribbean team's nemesis, as at other times in that period were Japan, South Korea or the United States.

Fate and destiny came together perfectly to give the reins of the Cuba baseball team to the Third World Baseball Classic to Victor Mesa. Hailed by many and criticized by many others, the former Cuban star in the centerfield, made an electrifying revolution with his selection of a team to this major tournament, which, beyond its successes, drove him to commit various sins.

The national team manager’s wisdom of any sport is the key for the team to achieve better results. The genesis of victory in each competition is originated in the offices of this character, but if his name is Victor Mesa nobody can decipher the main idea of the project, though he clearly pursuits the same goal of all managers, to win titles and seek fame.

在经过几年的强度比赛之后，古巴国家棒球队展示了一个新的比赛结构从2012-2013赛季来看。美人鱼的歌声说明了在近4年内这些队员素质明显提高，和我们“大型秀”的最佳化的热爱。 这52期的古巴棒球冠军赛包括2轮淘汰赛和play off的表演。第一场的排名赛有45局和16个队，同时第二局只晋级最好的8组，这些人在42场竞赛争夺写个赛季的4个入场券。 应该要变化的，原来的模式限制了比赛，那是不合逻辑的，对于提高古巴棒球水平而保持一个结构，会引起明显的停滞，包括一些国家优秀队员的疲乏，Antonio Díaz发表到，他是古巴棒球联盟（FCB）的新闻发言人和体育周报JIT的明星记者。 这个比赛体制，虽然会把正常年份的比赛从96场减少到87，但是需要更大的付出和运动员高强度的集中在每一局比赛中，因为一个失败的守垒就可能剥夺整个队伍进入下个赛季的权利，也就是说，失误的范畴是最小的。

There are only three months for the 3 rd WBC and Cuban baseball team will try to beat forecasts against teams belonging to the highest level of baseball, however to achieve their goal they will have to combine several transcendental factors. "We have to face a great challenge. We need to work hard to reach the level of the best teams in the world, but mostly we should show character at crucial moments, "said Roger Machado, manager of the Tigers of Ciego de Avila (Cuban current champions) and member of the technical staff of the national squad.

After several years of heated debate, Cuba’s National Baseball Series will be using a new competition structure beginning with the 2012-2013 season. All signs seem to indicate a palpable improvement in the quality of our players over the next four years, in addition to the optimization of our “big show.”

When I began to watch baseball, some 20 years ago, there were in Cuba baseball teams which were fantastic, with sublime quality. The Havana’s Industriales, the Vegueros of Pinar del Rio, the Henequeneros from Matanzas, the Villa Clara's oranges, or the red and black of Santiago de Cuba, all of them invited you to fall in love with their essences due to the mystic exuded by their histories.

The dawn of the 52nd Cuban Baseball Championship has domestic fans in suspense. Nobody, not even Cuba´s best expert, can rightly point the candidates to qualify for the second round, because it is simply impossible due to the huge parity among the 16 participating teams. The four historical giants of Cuban baseball are outside the top eight of the event, only places granting passports to the second round this season, after the implementation this season of a new tournament´s structure.

Last Monday December 10  the named of the top Cuban athletes of 2012 were anounced and it was something like the bell that announces the imminent end of the sports season in the Caribbean archipelago and the proximity of Christmas and New Year celebrations. Cuba acknowledged all the heroes who pleased sport fans with their outstanding performances in the international arena.

Cuban baseball is in the middle of an inexplicable slump. Barely two weeks after the beginning of the 52 National Series and already worrisome signs jump at you when you a peek at the statistics. None of the experts I approached with the simplest of questions had an answer at hand: where did the homeruns win?

Industriales, the most successful club in the history of Cuban baseball after 1959, will tirelessly go for its thirteenth National Series titles, and to conquer it its manager Lázaro Vargas has designed several working guidelines, but "Unity" is the cornerstone of the project.

The Cuban super-heavyweight greco wrestler Mijail Lopez have the unique opportunity to compete later this year against Argentinean star Lionel Messi, in contention for the Latin American Sportsman trophy of the season, an award given annually by Prensa Latina news agency.

 The national team recently completed a productive five-game Asian tour, which allowed dissimilar analysis facing the upcoming World Baseball Classic III, scheduled for March 2013. In the tour we could see several strengths in the national squad such as the excellent work of the pitchers, the visible motivation of all players or the power that Cuba still has to compete against top level opponents, as in this case Taipei China and Japan were.

In the life of the Cubans there are continuous economic, migratory and socio-political events; however, there is one phenomenon that mitigates tensions and unleashes unpredictable individual spontaneities. Its name: baseball.

When we still are several months away from the start in March 2013 of the Third World Baseball Classic, the Cuban national team thinks, raves and dreams of its nemesis: Japan, the undisputed winner in the first two editions.

The 52nd Cuban national baseball series will have a new competitive structure, as revealed last Friday at a press conference by Higinio Vélez, president of the Cuban Federation of that sport. The new system imposes the “all against all” regardless of geographic zones, and will have two stages: the first one with 45 games and 16 teams, and the second with 42 games by the first eight that classify in the first round.

Cuba ranked eleventh in the recently concluded 40th edition of the Istanbul 2012World Chess Olympiad, and led all Latin American nations in, although according to some experts the performance could have been better. The Caribbean team played better than all the other competitors from this area, and won seven matches, drew one and lost three, to finish with a balance of 15 points out of 22 possible.

History was repeated once more. The sadness emerged again to the surface of the Cuban soccer. There is no turning back, the national team said goodbye this last Friday to its chance of qualifying for the Brazil 2014World Cup, after losing 0-3 against Honduras in the Pedro Marrero Stadium in Havana. Cuba suffered its third loss in this knockout stage even a single draw, much less a victory, with zero goals for and five against, a performance quite distant from the real possibilities of the national team.

Cuba will face the fortieth edition of the 2012 Istanbul World Chess Olympiad with its elite team that include two players whose ELO is over 2700 for the first time in its participation in these events. Grand Masters Leinier Dominguez and Lazaro Bruzón lead the Cuban squad to the tournament in Turkey, backed by their 2725 and 2711coefficients, respectively, which places them in the 23 and 36 places of the world ranking.

The historical antagonism between Cuba and the United States, exceedingly intensified in the political sphere for more than five decades, will cease for several seconds when the once spectacular Cuban short stop Tony González throws the first ball at a Major League baseball game between the Boston Red Socks and the Kansas City Royals. The time machine will stop at 18:45 next August 25 to privilege the unwonted event, which will take place at Boston’s mythical Fenway Park, in the Massachusetts capital.

Some 29 years ago a demigod was born in Cuba: Mijain Lopez. Of these half human, half immortal children of Zeus, who wander the earth with superlative powers and dedicate their lives to delight the crowd with extraordinary genius. On Monday August 6, 2012, The great Caribbean Achilles weighing 120 kilograms delighted millions of Cubans with his gold medal at the London 2012Olympics, despite being surrounded by mysticism and scepticism, but which removed any doubt about who the best Greco-Roman wrestler of the world, pound for pound, is nowadays.

Cuba's performance in the recently concluded Olympic Games in London-2012 has a host of readings. Most fans will idolize a long time the five gold medals we won, the most opportunistic will only recall that the task was to surpass the harvest from four years ago in Beijing, and most critics will see the sixteenth place reached by Cuba as a Pyrrhic victory.