Friendly: US, Cuba friendly latest chapter of sports diplomacy

When the United States take to the field to face Cuba at Havana's Estadio Pedro Marrero on Friday, it will mark another step on the road towards normalization of relations between the former foes.

In July last year, Cuba and the United States brought more than half a century of enmity to an end when they restored diplomatic ties which had been cut in 1961 at the height of the Cold War.

A month earlier, the blossoming mood of rapprochement was given a sprinkling of goodwill when a New York Cosmos team including Brazilian legend Pele in their delegation traveled to Havana to face Cuba in a friendly.

It highlighted the role sport has played to thaw hitherto chilly relations between the two nations, a strategic tool the United States has made use of repeatedly for decades.

As far back as 1934, a team of US baseball all-stars led by Babe Ruth was embarking on a goodwill tour of Japan in a visit the trip's sponsors hoped would lead to a reduction in tensions between the two powers.

The effect of that trip was limited however. No diplomatic breakthrough resulted and seven years later the two countries were locked in a bloody war.

A more successful outcome followed the most famous example of sport being used to build bridges -- the "ping-pong diplomacy" exchanges between China and the United States in the 1970s which yielded a tangible improvement in Sino-US relations.

Until the US squad of table tennis players and journalists arrived in China in April 1971, no US team had visited the country since the ruling Communist Party took power in 1949.

In 2015 the New York Cosmos team, including Brazilian legend Pele in their delegation, traveled to Havana to face Cuba in a friendly (AFP/File)