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Already cursed, will Noel`s talent bless him, too?

Fabrice Noel just turned 21. Even so, most days he feels as if time is running out.

``He wants to go from here to there,`` Colorado Rapids coach Fernando Clavijo said, setting his palms facing each other about shoulder width apart, ``in two days. There`s a lot he needs to learn first.``

The coach can tick off the list of things Noel still needs to work on to become a topflight pro in Major League Soccer, but he always keeps it short. What remains to be done seems so insignificant compared to why.

``His success,`` Clavijo said, lowering his voice, ``might be the only way Fabrice ever gets to see his parents and his little brother again.``

The Rapids are listed at +120 for Wednesday`s match with FC Dallas (+188) on bet365.com.

Nearly four years ago, back when Noel was the most promising player Haiti had produced and already a star in the country`s top division, he turned down an offer to join a rival club and his family was threatened with death.

Not long after, while Noel was playing in a tournament in the United States, gunmen shot and killed his two older brothers, 26-year-old Luckner and 25-year-old Kenson. They left Jackson, the youngest of the four boys, alive with a message for Fabrice: ``We will find you, and we will kill you.``

Noel`s family went into hiding and he has not been back to Haiti since. He was granted political asylum in the U.S. immediately, but the immigration system has barred his parents and brother from joining him a handful of times already. At lengthening odds, a team from the Colorado-based law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP that has taken on his case pro bono will try again in a month or so.

In the meantime, Noel sends home the lion`s share of every paycheck and waits for those nights when a cousin can safely gather the family and put them on the phone.

``It`s been a long time,`` Noel said, ``and last night, like sometimes before games in high school, I cried about it some. And today, I wasn`t happy too much.``

Yet the day went better than he expected. Noel set up the only goal in the 87th minute as the Rapids reserves beat the Chicago Fire`s reserve squad 1-0. As he walks toward the team bus carrying cleats in his right hand, Noel smiles occasionally as teammates razz him or slap his back.

It seems impossible to imagine such a large a burden resting on such slim shoulders. Then again, it`s been that way since the kid was 16.

That was when Noel became the youngest player on Racing Club Haitien, had his picture taken with the president, was rewarded with patronage jobs for his two older brothers and began touring the world as a key member of Haiti`s national youth teams.

Then one day, supporters of a team called Violette, which was Racing Haitien`s rival both on the pitch and in the political arena, showed up and demanded that Noel switch sides. In retrospect, that was the day he first learned the gift that should have been his family`s blessing could become its curse.

``In Haiti, football is crazy, a part of everything from how you vote to whether you eat. If you win, they promise you can have everything. But when it doesn`t work out,`` Noel paused, then shrugged his shoulders and feel silent.

Clavijo understands that silence only too well. A former U.S. national team player, he became Haiti`s national coach for almost a year beginning in 2003. The program was so underfunded, Clavijo bought the balls, shoes and uniforms himself. He recalled countless times the players were promised salaries that never materialized. At banquets, team officials and hangers-on would turn up and eat all the food before his players had even arrived.

``Every promise that was ever made,`` Clavijo said, ``was broken. When you come from hardship, what you learn is to grab things while you can. That is why Fabrice wants to do it now.``

You wouldn`t have gotten that impression, though, watching most of Sunday`s reserve game. Noel seemed distant, grim, almost uninterested, even though the coaches, the Colorado regulars, and his reserve teammates yelled nonstop encouragement, like a cadre of older brothers.

``Get in there, Fabrice.``

``Middle, Fabrice, middle. And stay there.``

``Pressure, coming, right shoulder, Fabrice. Move, move, move!``

Suddenly, with three minutes left in regulation, Noel collected the ball along the left sideline, a few steps inside the attacking half. He dribbled to his right, deked two defenders, played a neat little give-and-go with a teammate and was in third gear by the time he got the ball back.

Noel veered right again, pulled two defenders over, then hit the brakes, and whirled quickly to his left. Into the space the defenders had just vacated, he slipped a left-footed pass through to send teammate Melvin Tarley in alone on the goalkeeper. Noel`s face lit up the second after the ball hit the back of the net, but that was as much satisfaction as he allowed himself.

``He`s a young guy with a shot at a long, successful career,`` teammate Clint Mathis said. ``Putting it together is tough for any of us, but most people here can`t imagine what it`s like for him.

``Trying to learn the pro game, trying to get by, trying keep his family together and get them out,`` Mathis added, shaking his head, ``has got to be eating him up.``