If you grow up in Haiti, as I did for a little more than the first decade of my life, there are two elements that are bound to impact your daily life: politics and soccer. Growing up there is to be raised self-consciously amidst the weight of history. Through school textbooks, oral stories, murals, mural inscriptions and monuments, I felt the past was somehow moving towards me without ever being able to reach me. The Haitian Revolution, the Duvalier family dictatorship, the qualification for the 1974 World Cup were some of those giant historical markers. Those moments – indicative of a time that seemed foreign to my own by virtue of the way they mythically percolated into the cultural memory – always seemed to epitomize Haiti: the sublime and the tragic.
Haiti hosted the 1973 CONCACAF Championship where the first-place team was to gain a place at the next year’s World Cup. In the tens of thousands, spectators flocked to the Stade Sylvio Cator for a three-week period. Haitians were no doubt in unforeseeable euphoria as they watched their team march through the group, winning four out of five games, only losing to Mexico in the last game after having already qualified. Off the field, Jean-Claude Duvalier, son of the defunct François, resumed his father’s bloody spell as president for life.
Jean-Claude was supposedly very present in team affairs and invested financially into the team’s success. Emmanuel Sanon, who had scored five goals in the qualifiers and achieved legendary status when he scored against Italy, spoke of the president’s involvement. “He made it clear that it was his team, and his money which got us to where we were,” Sanon later told The Guardian. “He’d show up to training, and regularly phoned me and several of the other players to check that we were OK. Some of the guys felt it was dangerous to have Jean-Claude too close to the team. Although he was young, he was like an old-fashioned father, who gave us life, but could also punish us if he wished.”
During their combined period of dictatorship – 29 years – massacres, Macoutes, murders was how the Duvaliers made their names. During those years, political opponents, writers, doctors and many others menaced by the regime moved abroad en mass as part of an ever-growing diaspora. Wherever they watched the World Cup from, I can imagine Haitians were jumping up and down, as exuberant as the coaching staff clad in red on the touchline, when Sanon dribbled past Dino Zoff to be the first to pierce the Italian goalkeeper’s net in 1142 minutes of play.
Historic firsts of global resonance have always been a point of pride for Haitians. Our revolution was the first time a former slave colony had successfully fought for freedom. The French, incensed at losing their former colony, imposed a debt on the new republic. The United States was also fearful the events in the Caribbean would inspire a slave rebellion in the antebellum South and sought to cripple Haiti both economically and politically. Centuries later, Haiti and Zaire—now DR Congo—became the first two black nations to qualify for the World Cup in 1974. (Egypt and Morocco, the first African sides to play in a World Cup, participated in the 1930 and 1970 editions, respectively.)
This provoked the ire of certain European officials who, not unlike the time Haiti gained independence, sought to claim that two black republics could not belong on the global stage. According to the historian Matt Robertshaw, Artemio Franchi, who was the president of UEFA at the time) suggested “developing” countries should be removed from the qualifying process while Stanley Rous, the departing FIFA president, proposed to “separate the wheat from the chaff” in the preliminary stages. At the tail end of a period of decolonization in Africa, Franchi and Rous’ propositions seemed to signal a desire to punish black people for daring to dream.
Now, in 2026, Haiti are the first team to have qualified for the World Cup without playing a single qualifier on home soil. The Grenadiers played “home” games in Barbados and Aruba, before playing their next three “home” games in the next round in Curaçao. After securing qualification with a 2-0 win against Nicaragua on November 18, 2025, the players shared a message on social media: Ouvè peyi a (Free up the country). Directed at the armed groups that have controlled entire swaths of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, the message was shared in the hopes they would allow fans to celebrate this historic moment safely. Since that day, “Ouvè peyi a” is still a constant exhortation.
Another November 18th lives famously in the annals of Haitian history. On that day in 1803, the Haitian indigenous army defeated the French colonists at the Battle of Vertières. François Capois, an officer for the Haitians led the charge through a battery of cannonballs that knocked off his hat and his horse. That day, he expressed the spine-tingling words, “Forward! Forward! Bullets are nothing but dust,” which earned him a place in the pantheon of Haitian heroes as “Capois-La-Mort.” Today, the legendary and the real conjoin again for a nation desperate for unity.
Haiti’s mere presence at the World Cup, having qualified without playing a single game on home soil, demonstrates the flexibility Haitians have had to rely on historically, thinking on their feet to problem solve. While the 1974 roster featured only one player—the captain, Wilner Nazaire—plying his trade overseas the 2026 roster is the inverse. Of all those called up for this year’s World Cup, Woodensky Pierre of Violette AC is the only representative of a Haitian club. It is a squad that had to come together over time, with a mix of experienced national campaigners and faces new to the scene. Indicative of the changing demographics of the Haitian diaspora during and post-Duvalier, the team features players born in Haiti, France, Switzerland, Canada and the United States. No doubt all had to come into their relationship with Haiti differently but they will each wear the jersey, which, if not for FIFA’s strict regulations, would carry a graphic of a group of Haitian soldiers raising the blue and red flag. Home, after all, remains home through political turmoil and all the paradoxical relationships. In Creole: Lakay se Lakay.
Despite Haiti’s elimination ahead of their final group stage match against Morocco, this group of players will be tasked again to replicate the spirit of 1974 in representing the nation at their final match on U.S. soil. Not that there aren’t any worries here in the host country too. Due to the volatile federal crackdowns in the United States, the atmosphere leading up to the tournament has been everything but hospitable. That rings true for fans of most nations and is particularly true for Haitians. Being vilified through the press again, uncertain immigration status and extremely high ticket prices threaten to dampen the team’s achievement. But it’s certain once the ball rolls, citizens of this soccer-mad nation will burst with pride and excitement despite the uncertainties.
No matter what the circumstances, Haitian passion and talent remains and continues to be filtered through generations. Haiti will participate in the under-17 World Cup later this year, having qualified for three of the last four installments. The women’s team qualified for the previous World Cup in 2023 and are still in contention to participate in the next one. For the men’s side, back at the World Cup after 52 years, there is an opportunity to be written into Haitian lore. Despite elimination, a first win at the World Cup finals is still up for grabs and a valiant performance is surely the parting wish of every Haitian player and fan. Whatever the outcome, you can be sure that this summer, whether at home or abroad, on the concrete or on the grass, with a bottle of Tampico or the Trionda, fans and players have followed in the mold of Capois to scream “Forward! Forward!”