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3 Olympics qualifying defectors get a new chance with the GALAXY

By Ric | April 9th, 2008

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Three of the Cubans who defected just after their Olympics qualifier with USA are now at the Home Depot Center training with the LA Galaxy, it was announced today. The players were a part of the under-23 national team of Cuba, who were competing in the CONCACAF final qualifying tournament last month. In the group stage, the team was facing USA in their first match, and all matches were held in Florida. After the match, seven of the Cuba team disappeared. Here is the story on the 3 who have now made public their situation via the LA Newspaper La Opinion and the official Galaxy blog.

from the official LA Galaxy Blog:

“Three new faces joined the Galaxy in training this week as goalkeeper Jose Manual Miranda (center), midfielder Yordany Alvarez (right) and defender Yenier Bermundez (left) made the trek from Florida to Southern California. All three players come to the Galaxy after defecting from the Cuban U-23 team during the Olympics qualifiers a month ago.”

“All three had vital roles in the game against the U.S., a game which finished 1-1 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. Miranda, the starting keeper that night, made eight saves during the game, helping the Cubans walk away with their only point in qualifying competition. Alvarez assisted on the lone Cuban goal of the tournament, and Bermundez captained the U-23s before fleeing the team hotel that night.”

“All three will train with the Galaxy for at least the remainder of this week and potentially next week as well in the run up to the game against Houston.”

Today’s full blog entry,

http://thelagalaxy.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-faces-at-training.html

Spanish-language article from today’s LA OPINION,

http://www.laopinion.com/deportes/futbol/?rkey=00000000000003623780

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 7:02 pm and is filed under Soccer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.