Two more wins. That’s all the Haiti women’s national soccer team needs to qualify for the World Cup. Heading into the weekend, the team is two wins at FIFA’s interconfederation playoffs away from achieving that goal and setting off celebrations in Port-au-Prince, Cap-Haitien and beyond.
Two teams stand in Haiti’s way. Les Grenadières need a win over Senegal on Feb. 18 to advance to a Feb. 22 date with Chile. Both games are in Auckland, New Zealand, with the winner of the three-team mini-bracket awarded a spot in Group D with England, Denmark and China.
“There’s a lot of unhappiness in the country, and football is the joy,” midfielder Danielle Etienne told ESPN. “Being able to qualify to the World Cup would be major. We want that for the country as a whole, to have a breath of fresh air and kind of step aside from anything going on.”
While all 10 nations still competing for the final three spots in Australia/New Zealand are dreaming of success, few have faced as many obstacles as Haiti has to get to this point. The past 18 months have presented challenged even for a nation that has been through as many trials as Haiti has since a rebellion led by former slaves overthrew the French colonial government to earn independence in 1804.
In January, police rioted and trapped the prime minister in the airport. The country’s wealthiest citizens have been exposed for financing the gangs that have overtaken the country, even as half of the nation’s children require humanitarian aid to survive. The nation still hasn’t recovered from past crises, like a presidential assassination, the 2010 earthquake and the cholera outbreak that followed.
This young team knows becoming the second Caribbean team to qualify for the Women’s World Cup — and therefore reach their first-ever World Cup — won’t resolve those issues. But it would be something positive, a reason for “Haiti” and “good news” to appear together in the global press.
“It is very hard because a lot of people around me that don’t know Haiti tend to have a really bad view of it, and some people are even vocal about it and kind of degrading about it,” goalkeeper Lara Larco said. “I want to have a voice and qualify to the World Cup to be able to say, ‘Haiti is not what you think it is.'”
For the players themselves, it would represent the fulfillment of a goal many have been working toward for the majority of their lives. It would be a demand that their country and heritage be respected.
“It was definitely a roller coaster, we had our ups and we had our downs,” defender Milan Pierre-Jerome said of that CONCACAF experience. “The Mexico game, I think that was where we saw what we could really do. And having played that game is kind of setting us up for this next tournament we’re about to enter into.”
While Haiti’s players desperately want to qualify through this month’s tournament, the future also looks extremely bright. Much of the squad has played together from the youth levels, with Dumornay, Mondésir, Etienne and Jeudy among the players who helped clinch a first-ever qualification to the U-20 Women’s World Cup in 2018: Dumornay even celebrated her 15th birthday during that competition.
Players like Pierre-Jerome, born in the United States, have helped bolster the roster as well. There was a gelling period for the various groups of players, several said, but the team now understands everyone is pulling in the same direction even if their strongest language is English or French rather than Kreyol.
The turning point was the month of training they scheduled before the CONCACAF W Championship, a time that Larco said she believes turned the collection of players into a true team.
“We really bonded at all the meals. That’s something in Haiti, or in my culture: No phones at the table, we’re just discussing. We’re there for an hour and a half just talking,” the Georgetown goalkeeper said. “It was very different than playing in the States, and I think that tournament everyone saw this was our opportunity to qualify for the first time. Like, ‘Let’s just trust everyone,’ and it went well.”
