Maykel Galindo defected to the United States in 2005 while playing for the Cuban national team at the CONCACAF Gold Cup. The night after scoring Cuba’s only goal in a 3-1 loss to Costa Rica, Galindo snuck out of his hotel room and into the unknown streets of Seattle. The former Cuban national team star soon joined the USL’s Seattle Sounders, where he would play for two seasons before being signed by Chivas USA on Feb. 8, 2007.
“I won’t lie to you, I was really quite afraid in that moment,” Galindo tells the San Antonio Express, recalling the night he defected. “I was afraid because I didn’t know what was going to happen to me, because I would just be out on the street without having anybody to support me. Maybe I was brave in what I did, but I was brave with a lot of fear at the same time.”
Galindo says he misses his mother and grandmother but he doesn’t regret the decision. He hopes to bring them to the U.S. one day, though he doesn’t believe that will happen anytime soon, despite President Fidel Castro stepping down as president. “When you see your family in person, there’s a different spirit that overcomes you,” Galindo said. “There’s a different feeling that you can touch them, that you can hug them. It’s been painful [not seeing them].”