Marlon Peres Capotes, 11, takes a shot at a goal made of two rocks during a pick-up soccer game in the Zimba La Lisa neighborhood of Havana.
“Ronald Hernandez Vega did not come to see a game played with the hands. There was baseball Monday morning, one and a half innings to complete a rainout in Cuba’s national league. Hernandez Vega did not care. He sat outside the provincial stadium in languid daylight, wearing the jersey not of Yasiel Puig but of Lionel Messi. Baseball is the sport of Cuba’s revolution, but soccer is the sport of the arriving world. … Soccer is nonstop, frenetically creative, its passion building from its penury, the rarity of a goal bringing theatrical release to its players and screaming ecstasy to its announcers. Soccer now rivals baseball as the favorite sport of many young Cubans. They play on lumpy fields and streets dotted with potholes, rushing to fill empty spaces like water, improvising with goals made of fishing nets, bed frames and school desks.” NY Times