Cuba's German Journeyman

2008-09-10T06:59:16-04:00

2008-09-04T14:33:20-04:00

2008-09-10T06:38:32-04:00

2008-09-05T12:04:01-04:00

yenie

Miami 505865

Great great post again. Please, keep on blogging more than once a day (I know you want to go to El Aljibe and roam around checking out our babes instead though , LOL) because it's simply the best reports I've seen from a journalist that has visited Cuba. You hit it right on the nail. Our only and sorry newspaper never says anything about soccer and we go to the extremes because The Cuban soccer league is not even broadcasted on the radio. However, one of the 3 TV stations shows one game a week from other leagues on Saturdays. This game is usually from the weekend before, sometimes a couple of weekends back. This game of the week is followed very closely because it's the only contact with soccer and people can watch players and settings from other countries. 2671782

2008-09-05T11:14:26-04:00

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FCBarca

New York 199066

Good stuff once again, Grant....Love this line: "In recent years Fanz had been snorkeling in the lower-divisions of German soccer" Snorkeling in the lower division, nice! 2670854

2008-09-05T09:41:16-04:00

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Zizou10

Milwaukee 161935

Here's to playing for the draw. 2669354

2008-09-05T07:39:34-04:00

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Big Chaco

Los Angeles 36694

ESPN Classic. 8pm EST. Saturday 2668523

2008-09-05T02:44:18-04:00

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cerati9

Hialeah 45137

Awesome blog. And I agree on the whole travel restrictions. I think the best way to get rid of communism is to let the floodgates of cash flow. This stalemate between both countries is ridiculous. Is this game going to be shown on TV in the US? 2668063

2008-09-04T21:51:25-04:00

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Walter Lippmann

Los Angeles 512063

Wouldn't it be nice if fans from the United States could go and cheer on their team in this first event in over half a century in Cuba, but Washington's travel restrictions would make that a criminal offense for all but a handful of journalists. Really, it's time and overtime to normalized relations with our neighbor to the south. Thanks for your blog and enjoy the performances. Walter Lippmann Los Angeles, California 2667231

<img title="Simon Bruty/SI" src="http://i.cnn.net/si/fannation/fanz-fn.jpg" vspace="6" border="1" height="357" hspace="6" align="right" alt="Simon Bruty/SI" width="210" />HAVANA, Cuba -- Reinhold Fanz, the German coach of Cuba’s national soccer team, just can’t get any respect. Official CONCACAF match reports misspell his last name as Franz (since presumably all these Germans are named Hans or Franz, right?). And when I spoke to a German journalist here on Wednesday he said he’d never heard of Fanz until he was named Cuba’s coach in January. (And this was coming from a guy who follows German soccer.) So who is this German journeyman of a coach? Well, Fanz coached Eintracht Frankfurt (for nine games in 1998-99 before being fired) and Hannover 96 (from 1996-98), though he left Hannover before U.S. defender Steve Cherundolo joined the team. In recent years Fanz had been snorkeling in the lower-divisions of German soccer, but last January he finally took the plunge with Cuba. “Three years ago the Cuban team stayed and played in Germany, and I was a coach from a club in Germany,” says the ruddy-faced Fanz. “The president [of the German club] knows the president [of the Cuban federation], and he always said when Cuba gets better I should take the post. At first I don’t want to go to another country, I want to stay in Germany. But then I see the [Cuban] team two or three times: last year in New Jersey at the Gold Cup and last September here.” “I see the under-23 team and say, ‘O.K., we have a little chance, and we can try it.’ And so I begin the job here in January.” Cuba’s soccer history isn’t a storied one. The Cubans have played in one World Cup, reaching the quarterfinals in 1938 after beating Romania 2-0 in Toulouse, France. (They got smacked 8-0 by Sweden in the quarters, but hey, they won a World Cup game against a European team on European soil. Not everyone can say that--cough, cough, USA.) Cuba also came within two points of qualifying for the 1982 World Cup, but otherwise Cuban soccer has been in the doldrums until this current run to the CONCACAF semifinal round. Not that Fanz is expecting much more for now. Seven players from Cuba’s under-23 team (including captain Yeniel Bermudez) defected to the U.S. at the Olympic qualifying tournament in March, and while Fanz claims it wasn’t a big issue (“only one or two players had a chance for the A-team,” he argues), there are plenty of other challenges facing the coach. “The job is very difficult here because there is no professional league, no professional players,” he says. “And the climate is difficult. It’s many problems here. But it’s an adventure. There are good things too. The boys are naturally not stars, but there are not many problems with the players. They want to get better, and we make a big step from March to August. We have many players between 18 and 23 years old, and they learn from game to game.” Fanz’s team outscored Antigua 8-3 in the home-and-away first round of CONCACAF qualifying to reach the semifinal round. But Cuba fell 3-1 at home to Trinidad & Tobago in their first semifinal-round qualifier last month, a result that even the state-controlled newspaper Granma called a “fracaso” (total failure) in Thursday’s edition. (You know things are rough, by the way, when even the official state organ starts slagging on your team. If I were Herr Fanz I wouldn’t be making long-term housing plans here. And while we’re on the topic of Granma, named for the boat that brought Fidel Castro back to Cuba from exile in Mexico, it’s worth pointing out that today’s short newspaper piece previewing Saturday’s game was buried below stories about the start of the Paralympic Games in Beijing and the qualification of a Cuban women’s hammer-thrower for the world track and field championships. Yikes.) While Fanz didn’t want to go into any details on how he plans to play against the U.S., he at least projected some optimism about Saturday’s game. “Did you see the game Guatemala-USA [a 1-0 U.S. win]? I see it also--on DVD,” he says. “And Guatemala can win against USA. And Trinidad is also a good team. Every team can beat the other team. It’s who has the most luck and makes one or two mistakes less than the other teams who will be No. 1 and 2” and advance to the final round of World Cup qualifying. He was smiling as he said this. I didn't check to see if his fingers were crossed behind his back at the time.(Check back in for more blog posts from Cuba later today...)  1300 http://img.fannation.com/upload/user_profile/image/194/315/thumb/wahl_grant.jpg 11 MD

Grant Wahl

Baltimore 194615