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 recent signing of Barça), but above all I respect Cuba’s decisions.
Would this be possible ? Could Reyes be at least part of the Catalan club without disrespecting the principles governing Cuba? Will there be any type of opening for Cuban football to play in foreign leagues , as happens today with baseball? Can Don Quixote beat those huge windmills?
Several weeks ago, not many, Cuban government officially authorized three baseball players to play in the Mexican Summer League, a soft opening towards professionalism, but real and palpable, which, in my humble opinion, should not have turning back because it is the only way to reinsert Cuban sports in the world elite.
“If they apply this measure to several sports, it would be good for Cuban soccer in general,” Maykel Reyes told me, a rough diamond discovered in Viñales by coach Pedro Luis, and polished years later by trainers Francisco ‘Little Boy’ Sotolongo and Frank Roberto, before reaching the national team.
The 20-year forward also added that “if we could play more international games and at a higher level, this would increase the quality of Cuban players”, but that does not nearly guarantee reaching the global elite, especially in Cuba, a nation with little soccer tradition, with a very weak league and limited resources to build large stadiums and getting huge amounts of balls to massively develop the sport.
For example, Neymar, Reyes´ idol and current best Brazilian player, compared with Pele himself, had to ¨immigrate¨ from his country (where are a powerful league) to Spain for maintaining his growth as a player and avoid stagnation that was surely coming, and which was even evident in recent months.
If that monster of South American and world soccer should make that choice to raise his level and insert into the super elite, alongside Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo or Iniesta, then what should a Cuban like Reyes, lover of his country and his Revolution, do to meet his aspirations and life goals.
Will Reyes play at Barca? For now I doubly doubt it. First, because the Catalan club has no scouts in Cuba and secondly because the “openness” to foreign leagues is at an embryonic stage (actually is a test that can back out when least expected), distant from the real needs of Cuban athletes.
The players inserted in professional baseball in Mexico (Michel Enriquez, Alfredo Despaigne and Yordanis Samon) are the spearhead of a new idea or policy, which I think is proposed, in addition to raise the level of Cuban sport, to stop the ceaseless flow of athletes who migrate abroad trough dissimilar ways to fulfill their dreams.
