Memphis 901 FC signs Cuban defector
Cordovés agrees to a one-year deal
Heviel Cordovés celebrated his 29th birthday over the weekend.
But October marked six years since the newest member of Memphis 901 FC began a new life. That’s when Cordovés, now a United Soccer League veteran, made a daring midday dash from a downtown Toronto hotel. Then 22, alongside two other members of the Cuban national team in town for a World Cup qualifying match, the personable and gregarious Cordovés officially became a defector.
“I had it in my mind when I was 16 or 17, but I never tried it. I was a little too young,” he said. “But in Canada, it was the perfect time.”
It was early afternoon when Cordovés, Odisnel Cooper and Maikel Chang bounded down a back stairwell and slipped out an exit door, adrenaline pumping 90-to-nothing. They had arrived in Toronto only hours earlier and had just finished lunch when they separated from the coaching staff. Cordovés, who held a chef’s license in Cuba, remembers well his last pre-defection meal.
“It was pasta and a grilled chicken salad,” he said. “It was good. One of my teammates that stayed with me, he loves food and can eat a lot. But he was so nervous he couldn’t eat. So I was making jokes.”
That’s where the kidding stopped. Cordovés, with an assist from a total stranger, called a cousin who lived in Canada, and the trio bunked there for the night before busing across the border at Niagara Falls. Per the “wet foot,