Much is at stake for both sides.
The Cubans, who were beaten at home 3-1 by Trinidad & Tobago in their first qualifier, desperately need a victory in the CONCACAF semifinal round encounter to keep their already flagging hopes alive.
"It is difficult, but not impossible," Cuba's German coach Reinhold Fanz said.
A second consecutive road win would boost the U.S., 1-0 winners in Guatemala Aug. 20, into the drivers' seat in their quest to reach the final round and eventually their sixth consecutive World Cup in South Africa in 2010.
"First and foremost, it's a World Cup qualifier," U.S. coach Bob Bradley said. "The way we go about preparing for these games doesn't change."
But it is a rare opportunity for a U.S. sports team to play in a country that hasn't hasn't formal relations with the states in almost 50 years. The only time the full U.S. national team played here was in 1947.
"I understand the significance of the fact here we are Americans coming into Cuba to play a game," defender Danny Califf said. "More than anything we are concentrating on the game. It is a little difficult to remove yourself a little for all of the other reasons why we're here."
Not many players were about to shake the status quo when they spoke to the media after practice at Estadio Pedro Marrero Friday evening.
"It's as same as any game," defender Frankie Hejduk said. "I try to take every game the same. Everyone is a professional. Everyone has to take the game as serious as possible. It doesn't matter who it is against. At the end of the day it's about qualifying for the World Cup, not the individual teams we have to beat for the World Cup."
Some U.S.-based journalists have written that the U.S. team will receive a hostile reception from the crowd. But a number of local sports fans and Cuban Soccer Association president Luis Hernandez said that would not be the case.
A capacity crowd of 17,000 is expected for the match. A number of people and government officials have been invited to attend the match for free while the general public will be charged one peso to enter the stadium -- which is the equivalent to 10 cents. An association official said the peso was a symbolic form of payment.
"You can see that you have been very well welcomed in the country," Hernandez told U.S. journalists Friday morning. "Your best players will be cheered by the spectators. Our spectators identify with this discipline. You have a very warm welcome not only following that discipline, but by our spectators."
The match is a big deal for the Cubans to foster goodwill and public relations with the United States and the rest of the world. Stadium officials certainly were sprucing up the grounds, giving the outside of the stadium another coat of blue paint. While workers inside replaced parts of the roof near one of the goals (one of the pieces of the slate roof fell late afternoon, but no one was injured). On one side of the stadium, workers were building scaffolding for the ESPN crew -- announcers, cameramen and other cable network officials.
On the field, two men with hand-held gas lawnmowers cut the grass.
Beyond the track that surrounded the field was the scoreboard that will need to be updated by hand. It already had some important information: abbreviations of the names of the participating teams -- CUB and USA.
Hernandez said it was not known whether Cuban president Raul Castro, the brother of former president Fidel, would attend the match.
But he did praise the progress of U.S. soccer. "It has been an amazing development," he said. "It can be appreciated with all the work you have carried out with your players at different times. We respect what you have been able to do with your discipline in your country. ... For us, the best way to respect you is to defeat you on the pitch."
While baseball is king here, Cuba has been involved in soccer for some time. Its only World Cup appearance was in 1938, when it did not have to qualify for the World Cup; the country entered the competition and was accepted to play. In those days, the world's greatest sporting spectacle were in its infancy and hardly given the respect it gets now.
The Cubans acquitted themselves quite well. They played Romania to a 3-3 draw in the first-round knockout competition. In the replay, Cuba prevailed 2-1 against the European side, only to lose 8-0 in the quarterfinals to Sweden, the team's worst defeat in history.
As it turns out, Bradley has a family connection to Cuba. As a Marine, his father Gerry served in Guantanamo Bay around 1950. Bradley has black-and-white pictures of his father taken at the U.S. naval base.
"It's a very beautiful place," he said. "I'm sure it's different now, but it will be really interesting to see [Cuba] in person."
When he first heard the U.S. was playing in Cuba, Califf was hoping he would be selected for the team.
"I was excited," he said. "I was hoping to be part of the game to be here and be apart of it and to see a place that is mythical."
U.S. forward Landon Donovan wasn't surprised on the little he had seen in his first two days. "I didn't have many preconceived notions," he said. "I think it's mostly what you expect from a Caribbean island country. The people have been fantastic. Everybody is very friendly and it seems they are very excited for us to be here."
Due to the U.S. embargo and the lack of communication between the two countries, many U.S. citizens don't know about this Caribbean island.
"You know, I really didn't know what the expect, to tell you the truth," Califf said. "It's kind of a mysterious land for Americans and for me. But I heard that the've got old cars and stuff like that. But that's about it. I really felt like I stepped out of a time machine. It's just surreal. The buildings and the cars and just how everything is."
Califf bought some Cuban shirts for his son and daughter.
"It was a huge market," he said. "People were hawking things everywhere. There was some amazing art there and a lot of cool things that I wish we could bring back."
According to U.S. regulations, citizens can bring back education material, books and art. Cigars, of course, are forbidden. Each citizen is allowed to spend about $180 a day.
The U.S. team's hotel is just off the water. But there there wasn't enough time to check out the waves for Hejduk, an avid surfer, to take advantage of it in his short time here.
"It's very beautiful," he said of Cuba. "The water's beautiful. No, I haven't seen a wave. I don't think Bob [Bradley would] want to hear of [that] ... I was hoping there would be some leftover waves from the hurricane. It's pretty flat."
If the U.S. winds up qualifying for the Cup, Hejduk could be rewarded if the Americans wind up playing in Cape Town near the Cape of Good Hope, where the surf is up all the time.
But as the U.S. team said, first things first: they need to beat Cuba.
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