The Cuba national football team (Spanish: Selección de fútbol de Cuba) represents Cuba in men's international football, which is governed by the Asociación de Fútbol de Cuba (English: Football Association of Cuba) founded in 1924. It has been an affiliate member of FIFA since 1932 and a founding affiliate member of CONCACAF since 1961. Regionally, it is an affiliate a member of CFU in the Caribbean Zone. It was a member of NAFC (1946–1955) and later a member of CCCF (1955–1961), the two predecessor confederations of CONCACAF. It was also a member of PFC, the former unified confederation of the Americas.
Cuba has participated once in the FIFA World Cup in 1938, becoming the first Caribbean team to play in the competition. It is one of twelve CONCACAF teams that have participated and also one of four CONCACAF teams to advanced to the knockout stage, reaching the quarter-finals. In the round of 16, Cuba defeated Romania in a replay, 2–1, after drawing against them 3–3. They were then eliminated in the quarter-finals by Sweden, 8–0. Cuba has not returned to the World Cup since.
Cuba has participated twelve times in CONCACAF's premier continental competition, finishing fourth place in the 1971 CONCACAF Championship. The team's best performance under the CONCACAF Gold Cup format was reaching the quarter-finals three times (2003, 2013 and 2015). It has participated three times in League A and once in League B of the CONCACAF Nations League. Regionally, the team finished as runners-up in the NAFC Championship as hosts in 1947 (organized by NAFC, the former North American confederation), it won the Caribbean Cup in 2012 (organized by CFU, the regional body for the Caribbean Zone), and one gold medal at the Central American and Caribbean Games in 1930.
Cuba's first World Cup qualification campaign was for the 1934 World Cup in Italy. All of the CONCACAF entrants were placed in Group 11. The winner of a best-of-three tournament between the two weakest nations, Cuba and Haiti would produce a winner to play 1930 qualifiers Mexico in another round of best-of-three. The winner of that would play 1930 semi-finalists the United States of America for a place in the finals. All of the matches between Cuba and Haiti in the first round were staged at Parc Leconte in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on 28, 1 and 4 January–February 1934. Cuba won the first match 3–1 with Mario Lopez opening from a penalty and Hector Socorro scoring the second. The second match was a 1–1 draw with Lopez equalising in the 85th minute. In the final match, Cuba won 6–0 with two Lopez goals, one from Hector Socorro and one from his brother Francisco.
The second round against Mexico consisted of three matches at Parque Necaxa in Mexico City. Its first match, on 4 March 1934, saw Mexico go 3–0 up with a hat-trick by Dionisio Mejia, his goals scored in the 12th, 14th and 16th minutes. Mario Lopez scored twice for Cuba with one in each half, but Mexico won 3–2. A week later, Mejia scored another hat-trick as Mexico won 5–0, and seven days later, Mexico won 4–1 after Lopez opened the scoring in the 15th minute. Mexico did not qualify, their 4–2 play-off defeat to the United States was held in Rome during the finals, as the two teams had forgotten to stage it earlier.
1938–2000
Cuba v Sweden at the 1938 World Cup
The decision to stage the 1938 World Cup in France was poorly received in the Americas, who had hoped for it to return to South America after the 1934 World Cup in Italy. All nations in South America except Brazil withdrew, and all CONCACAF nations except Cuba, thus the two qualified by default.
The tournament was held as a straight knock-out tournament of 16 nations. Cuba were drawn to play their first-ever World Cup finals match against Romania (who were making their third finals appearance) at Stade du T.O.E.C. in Toulouse, on 5 June 1938. Silviu Bindea put Romania ahead after 35 minutes and Hector Socorro equalised nine minutes later. With three minutes remaining, Tomás Fernández gave Cuba the lead, but within a minute Iuliu Baratky forced extra time with a Romanian equaliser. Romania went 3–2 up in extra-time by Ștefan Dobay's goal on 105 minutes, but Juan Tuñas equalised for Cuba with three minutes of extra-time remaining.
The replay was held at the same stadium, on 9 June. This was at the same time as Switzerland's 4–2 replay win over Germany. Dobay put Romania 1–0 up at half-time with a 35th-minute goal, but in the second half Cuba equalised through Socorro in the 51st minute. Six minutes later, Carlos Oliviera scored the winning goal and it ended 2–1. In the quarter-final, Cuba lost 8–0 to Sweden at Stade du Fort Carre in Antibes, on 12 June. Sweden's Tore Keller and Gustav Wetterström each scored hat-tricks.[3]
The NAFC Championship 1949 served as CONCACAF's qualification group for the 1950 World Cup in Brazil. Cuba, the United States of America and Mexico played each other twice in a tournament held in Mexico City in September 1949. The top two would qualify. Cuba came third and did not qualify, their only point was gained from their second match, a 1–1 draw against the United States on 14 September. Cuba did not compete in World Cup qualification again until 1966, already under Castro's regime. They returned to participation in qualification for 1978, but the 1982 qualifiers represented a significant breakthrough- Cuba reached the final round of qualifying, and were only two points short of reaching the 1982 World Cup. In recent years, Cuban football has seen an improvement in results.
2000–present
The national football team of Cuba in 2009
They reached the quarter-finals of the 2003 Gold Cup (where they were beaten by the United States) by defeating Canada 2–0 in the Group stage. During the 2006 World Cupqualifiers, Cuba faced Costa Rica and were only eliminated on away goals. They held Costa Rica to a draw in Havana 2–2 and later battled it out for a 1–1 draw in Costa Rica.
During the 2010 World Cupqualifiers, Cuba faced Antigua and Barbuda and the match ended in a 3–3 draw. Later in Pedro Marreo, Cuba won 4–1 to advance to the semi-final round of the CONCACAF World Cup qualifiers. Cuba was with the United States, Trinidad and Tobago and Guatemala. Cuba finished in the fourth place with only one victory against Guatemala 2–1 with a goal scored by Aliannis Urgellés. They finished in third place in the 2010 Caribbean Cup to take a place in the 2011 Gold Cup. In 2012, Cuba won the Caribbean Cup for the first time.
For the 2014 World Cup, the Cuban team qualified directly to the Third round as one of the six highest ranked teams and were placed in Group C with Honduras, Panama, and Canada. Although the Cuban team had several close games, they ended their qualification process with one draw and five defeats (losing home and away to Canada and Honduras and drawing to Panama in Havana in their final game after losing in Panama City). Their only goal of the qualifying campaign came from Alberto Gomes against Panama in the final game of the group stage.
Defection and economic migration by Cuban athletes
In 2008, defections occurred during two separate tournaments held in the United States. In March, seven players from the U-23 national football, including Yeniel Bermúdez, Yordany Álvarez and Yendry Díaz defected during the 2008 CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying tournament while the team was based in Tampa, FL. In October, two days before the country's World Cup Qualifier versus the US, Reynier Alcántara and Pedro Faife walked away from the team's hotel near Washington, D.C.
INJ Player withdrew from the squad due to an injury. PRE Preliminary squad. RET Player retired from the national team. SUS Player is serving suspension. WD Player withdrew from the squad due to non-injury issue.
Official regional competition organized by NAFC. It was a predecessor confederation of CONCACAF, affiliated with FIFA as the former governing body of football in North America, from 1946 to 1961.
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(19 January 2026) [1] 
Cuba 3–1 Jamaica 
Cuba 11–0 Turks and Caicos Islands 
Sweden 8–0 Cuba 
Soviet Union 8–0 Cuba 
Russia 8–0 Cuba 
