As Delmas Oslet watched the Haitian national soccer team earn its first spot in the World Cup in five decades, he said he was filled with “happiness, happiness, happiness.”
But there were also tinges of pain.
Mr. Oslet, 49, left Haiti in search of a better life more than 20 years ago because of social instability. He couldn’t help but think now, he said, of the hundreds of thousands of others who had fled since then.
Some departed seeking opportunities, as Haiti remains the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Others left in the wake of persistent disasters, like the earthquakes and hurricanes. And many have fled a long crisis of gang violence that has grown steadily worse since 2021, driving more than a million Haitians out of their homes, according to United Nations figures.
“The team’s win won’t resolve the deep problems in Haitian society,” said Patrice Dumont, a former Haitian senator who is a longtime soccer commentator. “We know that. But it’s a relief. It’s fundamental for us. Even with hunger, you can be proud. Hunger doesn’t prohibit joy.”
He said the celebrations after the win on Tuesday reminded him of those when Haiti qualified for its only other World Cup, in 1974, when he was 15. The difference now, he said, is the country’s deep “multidimensional crisis.”
Because of the violence, Haiti’s team has not played in its home country since 2021 — the national stadium was occupied by armed groups last year — and it has instead adapted to life on the road. Most of its home games have been played on the island of Curaçao, where Mr. Oslet lives and runs a Haitian food catering business.
“In life, things always happen,” he said. “And with the team winning, we’re very happy.” (Curaçao, meanwhile, qualified for the World Cup for the first time.)
Many Haitians expressed delight at the 2-0 win over Nicaragua that guaranteed Haiti a place in the 2026 competition, which will be hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada.
Celebrations in Haiti, including the violence-ravaged capital, Port-au-Prince, stretched for many hours, Haitians said. “It was kind of like carnival,” said Jenel Loubeau, 27, a youth soccer coach in Les Cayes, a city in southern Haiti.
He watched the game on a giant screen set up in the middle of town and cried with happiness at the results, he said. “It was magnificent.”
Haitians called the celebrations a rare outburst of joy given the security crisis in much of Haiti, where gangs have taken advantage of the power vacuum left by the 2021 assassination of its last elected president.
A gang-fighting force of international police officers and soldiers, largely from Kenya, has managed a few victories but has failed to quell the spread of violence to areas outside of Port-au-Prince.
The Haitian national team, some Haitians said, has come to resemble the diaspora, which includes over a million people living in the United States alone. Several of the team’s younger players have never played for the team in Haiti, and some are Haitians who were born abroad.
“A lot of people of Haitian descent have never stepped foot or may never step foot in Haiti, and this could be the closest some of these people get to a Haitian experience,” said Winy Bernard Bertin, 48, a Haitian-Canadian marketing consultant who lives in Mexico City.
She and her husband, Clifford Bertin, 50, an artist who was born in New York to Haitian parents, have been living off and on in Haiti their entire lives. They have been thrilled since Tuesday.
“The joy that sports brings to a nation and its diaspora is something important to celebrate, without forgetting that this is a very minuscule thing in a pot of a lot of very difficult things,” Ms. Bernard Bertin said.
Since Tuesday, congratulations have poured in from around the world, including from Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, the Haitian musician Wyclef Jean and Laurent Saint-Cyr, the head of Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council. (Videos on social media appeared to show even a notorious gang leader celebrating.)
The pressure is not lost on members of the team. “We can make them cry with joy,” one Haitian player, Duckens Nazon, said in a locker room speech. “Let’s give them that, at a minimum.”
For one Haitian, Robert Fatton, a retired professor at the University of Virginia, even the timing of the team’s victory was fitting: Nov. 18 was the anniversary of the Battle of Vertières, in 1803, when Haitian rebels defeated French troops during the Haitian Revolution. (The team is nicknamed the Grenadiers, after revolutionary soldiers.)
“I was as excited as ever,” Mr. Fatton, 70, said.
Haiti, ranked 84th in the world, will face a difficult path during the World Cup next summer. Its opponents and where it will play are yet to be determined.
To Mr. Loubeau, the youth soccer coach, that didn’t really matter. After watching other countries on the biggest stage for so long, he said, he was proud to “watch my country on TV in the World Cup.”
David C. Adams, André Paultre and Maria Abi-Habib contributed reporting.
James Wagner covers news and culture in Latin America for The Times. He is based in Mexico City.
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