HAVANA — The Cubans are getting all dressed up their qualifier with the United States on Saturday. When I arrived at Estadio Pedro Marrero, they were painting the place — it’s now blue rather than a kind of orange. There were tables set up for a press section, something the Cubans hadn’t done for their previous game with Trinidad (though there is significantly more media for this game) and installed wireless in the press area and were putting out lawn chairs in certain sections so people wouldn’t have to sit just on the concrete bleachers. They were fixing part of the roof over the grandstand at the stadium and while we were there, a piece of the new concrete roofing tiles slipped out of the workers hands, slid down the roof and fell about 100 feet to the running track below, exploding into a fine powder and missing some other workers, who were doing other things, by maybe 15 feet.

The field at Pedro Marrero is hard and the grass is long, though there’s the feeling it will be cut on Saturday before the game. Still, if you see the ball going all over the place and lots of bad first touches, there’s a reason. There was a dog roaming around the field during practice that was the mangiest dog I’d ever seen, and also looked to have an eye infection. There are animals all over the place here. At dinner, there were three cats roaming around the restaurant, walking under people’s tables, brushing past legs. No one seemed to pay them any mind.

A few of the American players went out in to Havana on Friday — they didn’t practice until 5 p.m. — which slightly surprised me because it was so darn hot. The match starts at 8 p.m. local time on Saturday (7 p.m. for you in St. Louis) so the worst of the heat should be gone, but it can stay hot here late into the day and the stadium is in a bit of a valley which should keep it warm. It doesn’t look like it will rain.

Another writer had to go over to the U.S. hotel after practice to meet someone, so I hung out there for a while — MLS commissioner Don Garber is along on the trip; he was going out to dinner with federation president Sunil Gulati and federation secretary general Dan Flynn — before we headed out to dinner at El Aljibe, one of the best restaurants in Havana. It’s renowned for its chicken. In an example of how the big world is small, Dave Davis of Los Angeles magazine, who was out here working on a story, and I were eating and in walked Grant Wahl of Sports Illustrated. When Dave and I got back to the hotel, we wandered out on to the bluff at the back of the hotel that overlooks the Malecon, which was alive and buzzing with people even at 11 p.m. Steve Goff of the Washington Post noted it looked like a scene out of American Graffiti with the ’50s era cars and the kids hanging out like they were at the malt shop. I had a mojito, which is sort of the national drink of Cuba.

A  bunch of us sat around discussing soccer past midnight on the patio of the Nacional. Cuba is a mystery team in many ways, inexperienced, but playing at home and playing for survival in front of what might be the biggest crowd they ever play in front of. The Americans are clearly more talented. While a tie would be a major accomplishment for Cuba, they need a win. If it’s tied at the half, Cuba could just wait for its one chance in the second half to try to win it. Cuba has tall defenders, so look for them to try and score on a set piece.