Two players on Cuba’s national soccer team didn’t show up for Wednesday’s game in Houston.
Cuban players Osvaldo Alonso and Lester More missed the first-round CONCACAF Gold Cup game against Honduras. After Cuba was eliminated with a 5-0 loss to Honduras, coach Raul Gonzalez declined to say whether the two had defected.
“I’m a football man, not a politician,” he told reporters. “I will not answer that question.”
Cuban athletes have often defected from the communist country while in international competitions outside Cuba.
Meanwhile, authorities tracked down 13 Haitian players, all younger than 17, who disappeared from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. Two players had gone to Boston, and the rest were in New York City.
*U.S. and MLS star Eddie Pope, 33, said he will retire at the end of the season. “It’s just time,” he said.
*David Beckham, who returned to training for Real Madrid’s Sunday finale against Mallorca, said he is going to the MLS: “There is no clause in the contract. My last game is Sunday.”
