The Cuba Diaries: Capitalism and Soccer In the Land of Baseball and Communism

Editor's Note: VICE Sports senior staff writer Jorge Arangure Jr. recently went on a reporting trip to Cuba. "The Cuba Diaries" series is a collection of his stories while exploring the country. Click here to catch up on previous installments.

People say time in Cuba is relative; that coming here is like stepping into a time warp to another another place, another era.

That's mostly hyperbolic bullshit, a way to romanticize Cuba more than is necessary. Visiting Cuba isn't as much like stepping into a time warp as it is like visiting a time-based theme park. You turn in one direction and see Today Land, you look elsewhere and see Yesterday Land, and on occasion you'll step into Even Older Than Yesterday Land. Cuba hasn't quite figured out Tomorrow Land, which is still under construction.

There are moments in Cuba when it feels like you've stepped into a Borgesian labyrinth of space and time where the past doesn't predict the future, and the present is actually a product of what is yet to come. But mostly, the past looms over this country like a metaphorical sky. You can never escape it. So yes, time is a complicated concept here.

Which brings us to baseball. I'm not quite sure when I first came to believe that baseball was doomed here. Or if not doomed, then at least in real trouble. But it happened. I do believe that. Baseball is and always will be Cuba's national sport, its pastime, its obsession. But soccer has slowly crept into the public conscience, and it threatens to sweep up the Cuban youth in a way no one (except someone from the future, of course) could have predicted.

I see a booming soccer environment everywhere. On my afternoon drive through the suburbs one day, children were playing futbol on dirt fields in a way I imagined I'd see kids playing pickup baseball games. But I haven't seen so many kids playing pickup baseball games. The Cuban baseball landscape is so efficiently structured and organized that it almost has eliminated the spontaneity of the random unplanned game.

Baseball development in Cuba follows a very specific path. If you're a good enough player as a kid, you get funneled into your local town's team, which is coached by someone with a degree in physical education. If you continue to excel then you'll get spotted by scouts for your county's team. The goal is to keep advancing until you are spotted by scouts for the provincial/state team that participates in the Serie Nacional—the big leagues—or the national team. But even if you're not good enough to reach that level, there are organized alternatives.

INDER—Cuba's national sports organization—and the Cuban baseball federation closely oversee all of the country's baseball programs. This structure has turned Cuba into a baseball player producing factory. But their productivity has also turned baseball development into a stodgy assembly line system—a proud product of the revolution—that as a consequence of its efficiency has lost part of its charm.

And if baseball is socialism, Fidel and Raul Castro, then soccer is the exciting new alternative: capitalism, Obama, and Ronaldo. Soccer is a sport for the new generation.

On another of my drives through the city, close to rush hour, near fields just outside of Ciudad Deportiva—the Sports City complex where Olympians of all sports train—hundreds of kids in soccer uniforms practiced drills with coaches. They ran around cones. They stumbled trying to dribble a soccer ball. They jumped for joy when they got a ball past the keeper. The grassroots soccer movement is here.

Later that same day I spotted a group of teenage kids wearing tight-fitting Real Madrid uniforms—one of them holding a soccer ball—walking through Old Havana. They had just come back from one of those pickup games in Ciudad Deportiva.

"I love football because that's what the majority of the kids are playing now," said 16-year-old Karel Hechavarria in Spanish. "We see great soccer players on TV and we aspire to be as good as they are. We love the way they play."

What could Cuba look like in the future? A place where the world's most beloved sport is on equal footing with Cuba's beloved national pastime.

And yet here's this tricky thing about time coming up again. How it never follows a linear path in Cuba. How the past is the present. How every other sport is overwhelmed by baseball, the sport of the revolution, and soccer's recent surge is just a new phenomenon, an unknown thing, really, that doesn't have history—at least post-revolution history, the only history that matters here—or more importantly, Fidel on its side.

On a weekday afternoon, I visit the Esquina Caliente in the Parque Central in Havana. The scene is always the same here. Time seems to stand still. Men are talking about baseball. They always do this. They've always done this. And you've probably seen this scene play out in every Cuban baseball documentary.

The previous night the Industriales played rival Matanzas and the eccentric Matanzas manager Victor Mesa, as he usually does, gave the fans ammunition to talk strategy, and to discuss Mesa's overall sanity. Mesa made four pitching changes. In the first inning. This caused a lively discussion about Mesa's qualifications to continue as Cuba's national team manager.

The surprise though is that many of these men are wearing soccer jerseys: Italian national team shirts, Barcelona shirts, Real Madrid shirts, and even some Liga MX team shirts. There is more soccer apparel here than baseball apparel.

I'm told that on certain big match days—for example, when Barcelona plays Real Madrid—some of the discussion is about soccer. There is no bigger indication that soccer has entered into the national conversation than when it literally enters the conversation at the Esquina Caliente.

"Soccer from other countries is attractive," said 24-year-old Rodisney Lemus Verona, who was eavesdropping on the conversations about Mesa. "We see other soccer from other countries and we love it. To see a team from Havana playing against Pinar del Rio isn't all that attractive for people because of the field conditions. The fields here are terrible. We don't have even one artificial turf field here. Funds here are used for boxing and baseball. Soccer players get ignored."

Verona has a unique perspective because he once played soccer for Ciego de Avila and participated in several national team camps. He can personally attest to the fact Cuba is stuck in the past when it comes to athletics.

The top soccer league in Cuba is structured in the same way as the Serie Nacional. Players from a particular region represent their provincial teams in league play. Unlike baseball though, the soccer league doesn't have a playoff round. Like most major soccer leagues, teams play a full round robin season and the team with the most points wins the championship.

Hardly anyone goes to these games despite the fact that soccer has been played on the island for about 100 years. But soccer was most popular during the 1930s, a time in Cuban history that became obsolete once the Castros came into power.

While some of the top baseball games may attract as many as 15,000-20,000 fans, soccer games usually only draw up to 2,000 or 3,000. If a soccer game is played on the same day as a baseball game, then the attendance is usually much lower than that. It doesn't help that the many teams play in dilapidated stadiums with little to no protection from the weather for spectators.

"You go to Cienfuegos and you're basically sitting in the sun all day," Verona said. "You go to Pinar del Rio and it's a terrible stadium."

Not that it's all bad. Several years ago, FIFA donated equipment and apparel. As a result, provincial teams in Cuba's top league could now conduct regular practices. Prior to FIFA's donation, Verona said teams only had two balls for practices. Now they have about 10-15.

Also, teams now have separate practice and game day uniforms and spare cleats. Previously, if a player tore his cleats then he'd have to borrow another pair from a teammate or friend. Worst case scenario, the player would have to patch up the torn pair.

INDER and the Cuban soccer federation have also increased their commitment. Ciego had only two coaches—a physical conditioning coach that doubled as an outfield coach and a goalkeeper coach—when Verona first starting playing in the league. Now teams have a separate conditioning coach, a tactics coach, a massage therapist, and a water boy.

But even then, Verona thinks soccer still lags far behind baseball in every aspect. FIFA recently ranked Cuba's national team as 114th in the world, although several of the country's youth teams have performed well recently in international tournaments. Last year, Cuba reached the semi-finals of the Central American Games in Veracruz, Mexico, but lost to the eventual Gold Medal-winning home team 2-1 on a controversial penalty call. Progress here in soccer happens at a glacial pace.

"If they changed some of the economics of the game, if they paid us more, if they built better fields, then maybe that would motivate more athletes to focus on soccer," Verona says. "And maybe that would create more fans for the national game."

Verona says soccer players earn about $530 pesos (about $20 dollars) per month compared to the almost $2,000 pesos per month that baseball players earn.

"That type of salary hardly inspires you to have a positive attitude toward playing for your home team," Verona says.

But Verona says it's not just about salaries. He believes the federation should use funds to improve stadium and field conditions. Verona shows me scars on his legs and elbows from having played on dirt fields.

He also thinks that league games should be shown on television. For several years, Cuban national television has shown top flight European League matches—like Barcelona vs. Real Madrid, for example—which is part of the reason the sport has grown in popularity. Right now, Cuban national television shows more soccer games than it shows Major League Baseball games. But it doesn't regularly show games from the country's own league.

"What I'd like for people is to see that football exists in this country," Verona says. "I want them to know the names of the good players that play here nationally. I know the good players because I've played here. If you asked people here who the best Cuban soccer player are, they probably wouldn't be able to answer you. If you asked the same question about baseball players, everyone would have an answer."

Recently, Verona quit playing soccer to become a lifeguard. It pays him more. Yet while his time has passed, Verona is convinced that soccer, under the right conditions, has a future here. He believes FIFA has shown an interest in growing the game in Cuba because they see potential. So does Verona. He has played with several of the players on some of the youth national teams and he's convinced that a World Cup appearance is attainable in the future, perhaps as soon as 2022.

As with everything here, it's a matter of time.