Haiti’s World Cup dreams end. But history, respect beckon in Atlanta finale vs Morocco
As Haiti’s men soccer team prepares to play its final FIFA World Cup group-stage match on Wednesday against African powerhouse Morocco in Atlanta, it is not the golden ball they will be chasing.
Any hope of reaching the knockout round ended after Les Grenadiers lost to both Scotland and Brazil in Group C. What remains at stake, however, is something equally meaningful to many: pride, respect and a chance for the first Haitian team to reach soccer’s premier tournament in more than a half century to prove it belongs.
“There’s a lot at stake,” said Jacob Herard, 49, who has been following the team to world tournaments since 2013. “We haven’t yet earned a point.”
Only five Caribbean countries — Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and most recently, Curaçao — have qualified for a World Cup. All have either had a win or a draw, except for Haiti, which remains the only one of the nations to have qualified twice and in five games, have yet to earn a point, said Herard.
“To put that into perspective, the record for most games played without earning a point is held by El Salvador, which played six games,” said the diehard Haiti supporter and sports agent who after watching tiny Cape Verde’s 2-2 draw against Uruguay is increasingly psyched Haiti can similarly make history. “If we lose on Wednesday, we’re going to tie the record, which is the worst record for most games played without earning a point so we don’t want that.”
Herard said he’s frustrated and disappointed by Haiti’s performance. He believes the current squad is more talented than the one in ‘74 and could have gone further. He’s also disappointed that Haiti became the first team eliminated in the 48-nation tournament, missing out on a chance to potentially face France — the country’s former colonial ruler — in the next round.
“That would have been crazy,” he said, with a laugh.
‘Honor, respect’
Philippe Vorbe, a member of Haiti’s 1974 World Cup team, said at a minium the current players would be competing for “honor and respect,” and the possibility of advancing their own professional careers.
“The World Cup is like a window into global soccer,” said the former midfielder, 78. “There are a lot of agents who will be watching, a lot of scouts watching and a lot of managers evaluating players. If they see someone perform well that could lead to a contract.”
“When you play in the World Cup” he added, “you become what they call a World Cup player. That adds to your value as a footballer.”
Still, Haiti Coach Sébastien Migné faces a daunting challenge.
There are still players on his 26-man roster who have yet to step onto the pitch. Among them, the team’s only player out of Haiti, midfielder Woodensky Pierre and leading scorer Duckens Nazon. Nazon reportedly spent $36,476 tickets on the Brazil game, according to a receipt shared on the social media site Threads, for family and friends, only to not receive any playing time. His absence in the World Cup has fueled speculation about tensions within the squad and questions about whether he had been benched. A Haiti Football Federation spokesman did not respond to questions from the Miami Herald.
“Mr. Nazon deserves for the Ministry of Haitians Living Abroad, the government of Haiti and Haiti decorate him for his path, for the choice he made since he was 19 years old,” Frantz Duval, editor in chief of Port-au-Prince’s oldest newspaper Le Nouvelliste said Tuesday during his discussion about his editorial on Magik 9 radio station. “He chose to carry Haiti’s colors. He deserves to play.”
While Duval credited Nazon and Migné for bringing the squad this far, the latter has faced a barrage of criticism online over his lineup selections and substitutions following the two losses. The scrutiny intensified after the 3-0 loss to Brazil when Sunderland striker Wilson Isidor received limited playing time, entering only during the second half.
Those decisions, coupled with what observers described as tactical mishaps and a belief among some fans that Haiti could have beaten Brazil or at least score against it, have prompted widespread debates among fans and calls for Migné’s dismissal by some.
A former assistant coach of the Cameroon Football team, Migné, a Frenchman, was appointed head Haiti coach in March 2024. In that role, he’s had to coach a team whose nation is grappling with gang violence and political instability, football federation was plagued by internal turmoil and a program forced to rely on its diaspora.
And yet, while supporters credit him with helping Haiti reach the World Cup after 52 years, others criticize his demeanor, and accuse him of lacking confidence in players based on his some of his defensive formations during the match.
Tuning out criticism
For his part, Migné has tried to tune out the criticism. Before the Brazil match, he spoke of the difficulties of building a national team while Haiti remains engulfed in a multidimensional crisis. Football fields are either encircled by armed groups, or occupied by some of the nearly 1.5 million people displaced by them; a soccer training facility, donated by FIFA after the 2010 earthquake, like the national stadium, is also overtaken by gangs.
“Unfortunately, unlike previous missions I’ve undertaken with various national teams, I can’t live in the country for the reasons we all know,” Migné said. “It’s definitely a loss because I’d like to share more in terms of cultural exchange, to be better informed in my decision-making, and to have a better understanding of the country.”
Nor can he or his coaching staff, he said, travel to Haiti to scout players, which has led to a team made up mostly of players from France and the United States..
“We have one among the 26, [Woodensky Pierre] , whom I was able to identify in videos I saw with national youth teams,” he said of the team’s only player out of Haiti. But I would have liked to have been able to go there in person.”
“The fact remains, there is a void,” Migné added. “I hope that in the future—in the near future—if I am to continue my mission in Haiti, I will be able to do so. Unfortunately, that is not the case right now. So, we missed that opportunity. We also try to turn challenges into strengths.
Haiti has ‘12 million coaches’
Vorbe, who has watched the debate over the Migné and his coaching decisions during the World Cup unfold, refuses to join it.
“Haiti has 12 million coaches,” he said, referring to the country’s population. “Everyone is expressing opinions about things they have no expertise in. The only one who has any say over Migné’s contract is the federation.”
Supporters are entitled to opinions about why certain players were or weren’t utilized, Vorbe said. But without knowing the reasons behind those decisions, the criticism amounts to nothing more than frustrations over unmet expectations.
“It’s a useless discussion without facts,” he said. “It’s a sentiment they are expressing because they are upset. They had a lot of hope the team would win, and go far. We all had that hope. But it was hope, not certainty.”
Haiti was an underdog
Haiti entered the tournament as a major underdog. Ranked 83rd in the world, it was drawn into one of the competition’s most difficult groups alongside Scotland, ranked 42nd, Brazil, ranked sixth, and Morocco ranked seventh.
Yet, despite the losses, the team’s run united Haitians at home and abroad and filled them with pride many had never experienced.
“A Brazilian writer once said football is the opium of the Brazilian people,” Vorbe said. “Football for me, is the oxygen of the Haitian people. It’s the only thing that really unites us, puts us in agreement: How many times have you seen a crowd of Haitians with flags in their hands and headed to a match to support a Haitian team?”
Herard, who has so far attended all of Haiti’s matches and will be in Atlanta, said one of the reasons why he supports the team “is not because “I am so proud to be Haitian. But it’s because I believe in my core that this is the only thing that could bring us together...so the success of this team is paramount”
Morocco, like Brazil, has shown itself to be a tough competitor and why it’s considered a powerhouse.
Patrick Tardieu, a former captain of the national team, said if Haiti were able to tie or win on Wednesday that would be “a spectacular accomplishment.”
But more realistically, Wednesday’s match is about the same thing the others were: showing “that we deserve a seat at the table.”
“It’s all about pride because the odds of winning that game are very minimal, just as with the case of Brazil,” he said.
Haiti’s only other World Cup appearance was in 1974 when the country captured global attention despite losing all three of its matches. During the tournament, Emmanuel “Manno” Sanon scored the country’s only two goals, including one that ended Italian goalkeeper Dino Zoff’s 1,142-minute shutout streak.
“We scored goals, but we didn’t earn points,” said Vorbe, whose pass to Sanon during the Italy match secured Haiti’s place in soccer history. “If this generation can earn a point at the World Cup, they will go down in history as the team that did.”
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