By Jacqueline Charles and Michelle Kaufman
For a few moments on Tuesday, the escalating tensions gripping Haiti amid fears of a new gang offensive and rumors of another prime minister’s ouster hit pause and yielded something rare — unity.
The Grenadiers, the country’s beleaguered national soccer team, exiled from its own stadium after armed gangs turned much of Port-au-Prince into a war zone, had made history: 52 years after its first qualifying feat, Haiti was headed back to the World Cup.
Instead of the crackle of automatic gunfire signaling a new gang attack, the streets of Port-au-Prince and others around the country erupted with clanging pots, victorious screams and Carnaval as Rara bands played with delight. Not to be left out, across the diaspora, from Miami to Montreal to Paris to Rio, Haitian flags flew while a new rallying cry emerged online: #OuvèPeyiA, Open the country.
“These kinds of victories make you remember who you are,” said Patrice Dumont, a longtime sports commentator and former Haiti senator, reflecting on how Haiti’s years of political instability and gang violence have stripped away even a sense of pride among Haitians despite their rich history. “There is a kind of misery that people undergo that it shakes your confidence.”
Dumont, who was among the tens of thousands who flooded the streets, said he doesn’t remember the last time he saw that kind of jubilation in Port-au-Prince, where unbridled violence by criminal gangs has fueled multiple crises that have taken the country to the brink of collapse. Kidnappings, deaths, displacement and hunger all stalk Haitians, including in some of the very neighborhoods where members of the Grenadiers grew up.
“I don’t know for how long it will last,” Dumont said of the euphoria, “but it’s a population that’s believing once more — believing in itself, believing in people who look like them, footballers.”
“The government,” he added, “needs to seize the opportunity so that it’s not just an empty gesture.”
Haiti’s qualifying win came after the Grenadiers beat Nicaragua 2-0 in Willemstad, Curaçao. It’s the first team in history to qualify without hosting a single home game. That isn’t lost on Haitians or even some of the players, who in a video posted on X pleaded for gangs and the country’s politicians to “open the country.”
“I want to play in my country,” some of the players shouted.TOPSHOT – Fans cheer in the streets of Port-au-Prince on November 18, 2025 as Haiti celebrates its victory over Nicaragua and qualification for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Haiti, who last appeared in the World Cup in 1974, completed an improbable qualification campaign with a 2-0 win over Nicaragua. Ironically, Haiti secured their decisive qualification victory in Curacao, where the team have been forced to play their home qualifiers due to unrest in their homeland. (Photo by Clarens SIFFROY / AFP) (Photo by CLARENS SIFFROY/AFP via Getty Images) CLARENS SIFFROY AFP via Getty Images
Hope during a difficult moment
The victory indeed arrives at a difficult moment. The country is in the midst of an ongoing political transition, three years after the still unsolved-assassination of its president. On Wednesday, gangs were placing barricades and roadblocks in anticipation of Haiti police gang operations while in central Port-au-Prince clashes were reported between police and armed gangs. Meanwhile, a lack of fuel delivery over the last fuel days was prompting fears of a shortage as gangs were beginning to restrict movement around the port.
Armed gangs control up to 90% of the capital and are moving into rural areas, while more than 1.4 million are homeless after being forced to flee armed groups. Despite this, following the victory, players on Tuesday asked, “Where is the charter” plane? said Monique André, the head of the Normalization Committee of the Haitian Football Federation. The team has been based in Willemstad, Curaçao since last year.
“They would like to visit their country, go see the people, salute the population,” she said. “It’s been 52 years, and it’s something that’s put a smile on the face of every Haitian regardless of who they are.”
André was still celebrating with the players in Curaçao when she began receiving a flood of videos from around Haiti, showing the crowds.
I said, “God, I pray, and I believe that this World Cup qualification should be a symbol of peace for the people because we can accomplish a lot when we are united,” she told the Miami Herald on Wednesday.
But even the team’s historic triumph cannot escape Haiti’s realty. When the team finally takes the world stage next year, many fans in the country will find themselves unable to travel to the U.S. because of a ban the Trump administration earlier this year placed on Haiti. The travel ban prevents Haitian nationals who don’t possess a valid U.S. visa from entering the country.
Further, absent a court victory or change of heart by the administration, up to 500,000 Haitians in the U.S. are set to lose their Temporary Protected Status, presenting another challenge for the team, which would be looking for Haitian fans to buoy them on the field.
The team itself has not been immune from the country’s ongoing crises. Unlike the 1974 Haitian national team that went to the World Cup, which was composed of local players and coaches, the current team’s roster is overwhelmingly made of players who were born outside of Haiti. The team’s coach is a Frenchman.
André insists, however, regardless of where the players were born, “they are connected to the country, and they naturally love the country and are proud.”
“They have to be,” she said. “Because to put on a Haiti jersey and to sweat for it, to play 90 minutes on a field for it, you have to love the country.”
André says this is the first time in 44 years that Haiti arrived at the final elimination phase. From the moment she saw they had a match on Nov. 18 — the very date 222 years ago former slave-turned-founder Jean-Jacques Dessalines’ revolutionary armies routed Napoleon’s forces at Vertières to secure their independence as the first independent Black nation — she believed it was divine.
“Throughout our course, we saw signs showing us we would advance,” she said.
Dreaming of change
The team has had other struggles, which is reflected in André’s own rise to lead the federation. She emerged after FIFA in 2020 issued the group’s longtime president Yves Jean-Bart a lifetime ban after he was found to have sexually harassed and abused female players.
Jean-Bart denied the allegations, but the scandal created internal problems for the Haitian federation. A normalization committee was established, and after several appointments, André, who previously worked for Air France and American Airlines, was tapped to lead the group. She has done so even as soccer inside the country struggles.
André credited FIFA with helping the team financially. Now, as she prepares a budget, she says the players will need “a lot of moral support” going forward, given the conditions under which they are going on the world stage.
But she and others are hoping that this is more than just a fleeting moment.
“We all Haitians love futbol,” Philippe Vorbe, 78, a player on the 1974 qualifying squad said. “We need a partnership between peace and unity, so that Haitians can stop fighting with one another.
He hopes, he said, the expression of jubilation Haitians showed on Tuesday, “enters into certain ears.”
In a congratulatory note, the head of the Presidential Council, Laurent Saint-Cyr, said, “The Grenadiers offered the Haitian people a moment of profound pride and unity,” and their remarkable performance “reignites hope, inspires young people, strengthens national cohesion and restores to an entire people the conviction that together, anything remains possible.”
Robert Fatton, a retired political scientist, was a sportscaster in 1973 who called the match that sent Haiti to its first World Cup in West Germany. He recalled how Haitians of all classes, poor and privileged, celebrated the qualification with gusto.
“People went to the streets and ‘Rara’ bands appeared everywhere. It was total euphoria,” he said. “I remember crying while reporting the Trinidad victory over Mexico that sent Haiti to Germany.”
The players, “were treated as national heroes,” Fatton noted. Back then, Haiti had the great advantage of receiving the total support of the crowd, unlike the 2025 team, which has never played “at home.”
Nevertheless, Fatton remarked, “it is a major achievement for Haiti to qualify for the World Cup with a team that was mostly assembled from abroad and that did not practice in its own country.”
As Haiti qualified on Tuesday, Fatton felt the same vibration, as Carnaval appeared to have once more arrived early with the celebrations. But while it was very much a nostalgic moment for him, it was also bittersweet.
“I wish the country could enjoy this feat in peace and without the violence of the gangs and the desolation of poverty and inequity,” he said. “For a few days, however, all Haitians will forget their miseries and bask in the joy and pride that their national team has brought them.”
He added: “Let us enjoy the moment, however, and dream that the Grenadiers’ determination and achievement give us some hope that things can change in the homeland.”
