Already?

There was an underlying storyline of the USA-Cuba World Cup qualifier:  how many Cuban players would defect?  According to Steven Goff's blog at the Washington Post, a couple of players -- Reynier Alcantará and Pedro Faife -- have disappeared from the team hotel within the past 48 hours.  But according to this Virginia Metro article in the Post, a Cuban official says that those two players are still in Cuba.  That's possible, but from a competitive standpoint it makes no sense because Alcantará is perhaps their most important striker now that Roberto Linares is suspended.  We'll know who's telling the truth in a couple of days. 

Another item that caught my attention was that the Cuban team had been in the USA for at least two or three days.  FIFA regulations mandate that visiting teams arrive no later than the evening before the match.  I would have thought that the Cuban team would be in the States as briefly as possible to avoid any defection risk.

If Alcantará and Faife have indeed defected, it's not going to affect the outcome of Group A.  I don't see Cuba winning a point in the remainder of their matches, defections or not.