Editor's Note: SoundersFC.com is counting down the Top 10 Stories of the Year in December, recognizing the top storylines on and off the field in 2015. In the latest installment, we look back at Osvaldo Alonso's emotional reunion with his father.
By the time Osvaldo Alonso suited up for his seventh season with Sounders FC last spring, every soccer fan in Seattle worth their scarf new the backstory of one of the club’s iconic heroes.
No one knew, however, the story was about to get even better.
The quick version, for those who perhaps somehow haven’t heard, goes something like this. Alonso fled Cuba in 2007 while playing in the United States at the CONCACAF Gold Cup and has never looked back, carving out a remarkable professional career in Seattle while his family watched from afar. Whatever he accomplished with his newfound freedom – most notably four Sounders MVP awards and the reputation as one of the best holding midfielders in MLS – he did it without much communication with his family, who couldn’t even watch his games back in Cuba on the internet, let alone dream of seeing him play in person.
That changed in September, when Alonso tweeted out that his father – Osvaldo Sr., a former soccer player back in Cuba and a hero to his son – had received his U.S. Visa, and that the two would reunite after eight years. Read that again: Eight years.
The elder Alonso ultimately became a fixture at the Sounders’ training sessions in the fall and watched intently from the sideline nearly every day, rain or shine. He helped his son suit up for workouts and mingled in the locker room, fraternizing with the team’s other Hispanic players and the rest of the club that had welcomed his son with open arms years ago.
Alonso’s father attended his first Sounders game against the LA Galaxy on Oct. 4 at CenturyLink Field, providing some of the lasting images of the year, on or off the field.
And, in one last, fantastic twist of fate before the close of the year, Alonso spread the word on Dec. 14 that he was was headed back to Cuba during the offseason, his first trip home since he left in 2007.
This story just keeps getting better.
