Pierrot hat trick leads Haiti to 4-1 Gold Cup win over Bermuda. Haiti plays USA Sunday
The walk-up ticket line snaked around the southeast corner of DRV PNK Stadium Tuesday night as hundreds of late-arriving Haitian fans waited to see their beloved national soccer team in a Gold Cup qualifying game against Bermuda.
While they stood in line, they watched on the video scoreboard and cheered as Frantzdy Pierrot scored a hat trick in the span of 13 minutes to give Haiti a 3-0 first-half lead. The 6-4 and 210 lb. forward, born in Haiti and raised in Massachusetts, plays in France’s Ligue 2 for Guingamp FC.
Haiti won the match 4-1 to earn the final spot in Group B for the upcoming Gold Cup. The Haitians will play the United States on Sunday night in the opening round at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City. The other two teams in the group are Canada and Martinique.
The 16-team Gold Cup kicks off July 10 and will be held at 11 stadiums across eight U.S. cities. Haiti made it to the semifinals in 2019 and lost 1-0 to eventual champion Mexico.
“Our players did beautiful work, I am very proud of them and happy for them, and happy for our country most of all,” said Haitian coach Jean-Jacques Pierre. “They are the pride of our country. We want to project a positive image of our country every time we step on the field. Our objective is to continue to progress and go as far as we can.”
As U.S. coaches scout the Haitian team, they likely will be familiar with Pierrot.
A high school basketball and soccer star in Melrose, Mass., Pierrot played college soccer at Northeastern University and Coastal Carolina, where he was named Sun Belt Player of the Year in 2018. He was chosen by the Colorado Rapids in the MLS Draft, but went to play in Belgium before moving to France.
“Frantzdy makes it look so easy,” said Haiti midfielder Derrick Etienne Jr, who was born in the Richmond, Virginia, and plays for the Columbus Crew. “He is big and strong and we try our best to feed him the ball as much as we can.”
Etienne said Sunday’s game against the United States carries extra meaning for him.
“To play against the U.S. is really special for me because I was born here and I’ll be playing against old friends and teammates,” Etienne said. “It will be game for us to test ourselves and see where we’re at. It is the first time for us as a team to play against them and we are looking forward to it.”
Bermuda, which was coming off an 8-1 win over Barbados on Saturday, had no answer for Pierrot and Haiti’s free-flowing attack. Duckens Nazon scored Haiti’s fourth goal and provided the cross for one of Pierrot’s.
Bermuda’s lone goal came in the 80th minute from Nahki Wells, who scored a hat trick against Barbados. Wells plays for Bristol City in England.
“Haiti is a good team, a very powerful team, we were sloppy defensively and they punished us,” said Bermuda coach Kyle Lightbourne. “We possessed the ball high and they hit us on the break. We were up against a good team. They were better than us in front of the goal. Maybe we should have saved a couple of goals from the other game.”
Miami FC’s 6-5 goalkeeper Brian Sylvestre started for Haiti on Tuesday. Sylvestre, 28, has South Florida roots. He was born in Hollywood, attended Hollywood Hills High and played at Schultz Academy and Weston FC before launching his pro career.
In the earlier game, Trinidad and Tobago beat French Guiana 8-7 in a penalty shootout and advanced to Group C of the Gold Cup and will play Mexico on Saturday. Three of the players who made their PKs for Trinidad play in the United States in the USL – Neveal Hackshaw (Indiana), Jelani Peters (Pittsburgh), Dre Fortune (Memphis).
In the evening’s late game, Guadeloupe edged Guatemala in a 12-round shootout, much to the dismay of the crowd of 9,028 which was heavily Guatemalan. Guadeloupe joins Costa Rica, Jamaica and Suriname in the Gold Cup Group C.
This story was originally published July 6, 2021 at 9:56 PM.