Long faces and forced smiles, this is how they “celebrated” the return home of the members of the Cuban baseball team who lost this Sunday in Miami against the US team 14-2. The members of the group have landed at the José Martí international airport in Havana at 9:20 in the morning and will tour the capital that will culminate in the Coliseum of the Sports City with an official act that will take place after 10 , as planned.
Despite an unmitigated defeat, in sporting and political terms, that has made numerous exiles rub their hands, who took advantage of the event to protest against the regime, the ruling party will spare no praise for a team that against all odds managed to reach the semifinals and remain in an honorable fourth position that tastes like victory after the many troubles that Cuban sports have accumulated in the last decade. It had been 17 years since Cuba had been classified in such a high position.
In any case, the mobilization, more than for sports, has focused on politics. That nothing unites more than a common enemy is well known by the Cuban leaders who have turned Team Asere into a long-suffering champion against the pressure of exile in Miami.
Despite the efforts of the Cuban leaders to put a good face on the bad weather, the official photo of the players with the highest authorities (Díaz-Canel, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero and the president of Parliament, Esteban Lazo Hernández) had an air of a state funeral and contrasted with the congratulatory tweets.
The mobilization, more than for sports, has focused on politics
“Congratulations, admirable Team Asere. You’ve won three times: when you teamed up, when you ranked first, and when you played to the last out against a great team and hate of the worst kind. They made history. Cuba proudly contemplates them,” wrote Miguel Díaz-Canel himself shortly after the defeat.
Randy Alondo Falcón, director of cubadebatehas warmed up engines hours before the reception to the group with a article in his medium titled I hate littlein which he describes as “unique specimens on Earth” the “anti-Cuban haters” who attended the stadium this Sunday “united in that abominable franchise of aversion and spite.”
The regime spokesman directly points to Orlando Gutiérrez, from the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, of leading the attack, although without naming him and referring to him as a “veteran organizer of anti-Cuban street cheers and a friend of terrorists in front of Versailles, attempted with his steamroller smash his bullshit on the face of Captain Despaigne”.
In the text, he also speaks of the “not a few Cubans” who attended the game to support Cuba against “the truly defeated (…), those with a poor soul, the champions of hatred and lies, the inquisitors and killjoys, the eternal sowers of poison (according to the poet). They lost what they have never truly had: a people”, he continues.
“They will not be able to come to receive the warmth of this town but they will feel in the distance the satisfaction of love and the good work that their compatriots recognize”
Alonso praises the “formidable adversary” and calls on the population to give their support this Monday in welcoming the players who managed to finish fourth, although he wanted to emphasize that not all of them will be present, since the athletes with legal residence in the United States, authorized by the Department of State to join the Cuban team have mobility restrictions.
“They will not be able to come to receive the warmth of this town (…) but they will feel in the distance the satisfaction of love and the good work that their compatriots recognize,” adds the communicator, who asks to take advantage of the situation to modernize baseball and look for new talents that “make the soul happy”.
While the Cuban authorities turn to a message of unity that they plan to keep alive until the elections are held on March 26, in Miami the opponents who took to the pitch this Sunday with protest signs, Danilo Maldonado Sixth, Antonio Fernandez and Carlos Manuel Álvarez, spent the night at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami, from which they will leave this Monday after their bonds have been paid. All three were charged with the crime of trespass (invasion of private property).
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