NEW YORK/HAVANA: The thawing of relations between the United States and Cuba will be marked in a remarkable manner on June 2 when New York Cosmos fly to Havana to play the island’s national team writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

The match, at the Estadio Pedro Marrero, will come four days after the scheduled exchange of ambassadors and follows the historic meeting between Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro during the Summit of the Americas in Panama on April 11.

Pele, most iconic of Cosmos’ old heroes from the NASL days of the 1970s, is hoping to attend is doctors in Sao Paulo give him the all-clear after his recent hospital treatment for ??.

Not only will Cosmos be sending their players and officials but fans can travel with the team in a club-organised package trip.

Cosmos fly out from JFK Airport on May 31 and return on June 3 for what the club is billing as “once-in-a-lifetime trip.”

The US launched its commercial and political embargo of Cuba in 1962 after the nuclear missile crisis.

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