CLEARWATER BEACH, Fla. — From this pretty vantage point on Florida’s Gulf Coast, safely separated from arctic conditions up north and cocooned in D.C. United’s preseason training camp, there are moments when Junior Moreno can push aside the escalating political crisis in his native Venezuela.
Sun is abundant and breezes are soft, though it’s been cooler than normal. United is about a month from kicking off a highly anticipated MLS season. There are new teammates with whom to bond, muscles to condition and tactics to master.
But as he enters his second year as a starting defensive midfielder for United, Moreno is also thinking about his countrymen and his country, which, already debilitated by meteoric inflation, food shortages and social unrest, is confronting a struggle for power between the embattled president, Nicolás Maduro, and the self-declared interim president, Juan Guaidó.