Dickens Nazon was already strapped into his seat on the tarmac at Tehran Airport when his phone caught fire. A friend who plays in Israel. The alarm of war was sounding. “I said, wow, I’m so lucky because I’m on the plane right now, ready to take off,” Nazon, Haiti’s all-time leading scorer, recalled to Reuters. Ten seconds later, his luck ran out.
“The cabin chief said, ‘Everybody has to get off the plane. The war has started. The skies are closed,'” Nazon recalled. “And now you start survival mode.” He eventually saw a strike land 100 meters away before finding his way out of Iran and into France, where he needed a visa for the World Cup.
He made it happen. Haiti’s record scorer – born in the suburbs of Paris, playing for a Tehran club, emerging from the war – entered a World Cup his country had not competed in 52 years. That, in a nutshell, is the story of the entire squad.
Their players were not in Haiti the night Haiti qualified. They were in Curaçao – a Dutch island off the coast of Venezuela – 500 miles from home – because armed gangs control most of Port-au-Prince and the national stadium is unusable. They defeated Nicaragua 2-0. Now they needed Costa Rica not to beat Honduras.
Someone found the phone. The team gathered around it. Coach Sébastien Migne described the scene when the result came in: “Everything exploded, people were running in all directions.” In Haiti, fans rioted and occupied the streets. In Little Haiti, Miami, check out the nightly parties.
Migne himself was not in Curacao. He never set foot in Haiti.
“It’s impossible because it’s too dangerous,” the Frenchman told France Football. “I usually live in the countries where I work, but I can’t live here. There are no more international flights.”
Story continues below this ad
He managed the entire operation remotely — phone calls, video calls, Federation officials feeding him intelligence on local players — and, in his own words, “took his pilgrim staff to convince dual nationals to join the adventure.” He trained a country he had never seen. “Haitians are waiting for a sign,” Migne said. “And we’re going to show them we’re here.”
The last time they were in Haiti, they had a moment that the country still carries.
15 June 1974, West Germany. Italy were unbeaten in 1,142 minutes of international football. Goalkeeper Dino Zoff was considered unstoppable. Then 20-year-old Emmanuel Sanon, born in Port-au-Prince, took a pass from Philippe Vorbe, got past the defender and slotted the ball into the net.
Haiti lost that game 1–3, losing all three in the group, and went home. Sanon went on to play in Belgium and Florida, managed the national team, died in Orlando in 2008 and was given a state funeral in Haiti. A mural in Port-au-Prince’s Bel Air neighborhood depicts him alongside Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and Deslanes. The goal was 52 years ago. It is the first thing any Haitian mentions when you say the word football.
Story continues below this ad
The squad is almost entirely made up of dropouts. Of the 26 in Migne’s squad, only Woodenski plays football at home for Violet AC in Pierre Port-au-Prince. The rest are scattered in England, France, Belgium, Iran, Hungary, Slovakia, America.
Nazon’s journey is its most extreme version. Born to Haitian parents, he grew up speaking Creole at home, eating Joumo soup on New Year’s Day, hearing family stories about the country he first visited as a child.
What struck him then was not the poverty but the kindness of the people. He chose Haiti. Jean-Ricner Bellegarde, the Wolverhampton Wanderers midfielder, said the same thing in a different way: “I feel like I’m representing my family.”
Franzdi Pierrot was born in Cap Hatian, raised in Melrose, Massachusetts, and would return home to American soil. This year on May 26, the governor of Massachusetts declared Frantzdy Pierrot Day in the state.
Story continues below this ad
A country that pushed its people outwards for decades is seeing them come back wearing their colors on the world’s biggest stage. They will face Brazil, Morocco and Scotland in Group C. Scotland’s match at Foxborough on June 14 is crucial – a game in which a win is truly conceivable. Nazon will continue to lead the way in the pursuit of the 50th target for the country.
He was asked what that meant ahead of the Costa Rica qualifiers. “We can change many things in our country,” he said. “People need it.”