When thinking about who will make the World Cup, the same countries: USA, England, Netherlands and Portugal come to mind but one country that doesn’t come to mind is Haiti. Why is that? Well, the simple answer is they have never qualified for a competition. That is until now…
We will be looking at the CONCACAF Nation ahead of the World Cup in Australia/New Zealand to see if we can pick out some hope for this tiny nation on the rise to becoming a footballing powerhouse one day.
Since winning the FIFA Women’s World Cup Continental Final against Chile. Hati have gone on to lose all 3 CAC Women’s games against Venezuela, Costa Rica and Centro Caribe Sports losing 4-1, 2-0 and 3-1 which is not good news as all these fixtures were played by the squad traveling to the World Cup. Arguably Les Grenadieres have not got the easiest fixture list as their World Cup Dreams could be over in a matter of days after landing, their start to the World Cup sees them up against European Champions England who are favorites to top the group. Then 6 days later Asian champions China will be up against Haiti meaning that The World Cup dream could be ended even before facing up against Denmark on 1st August.
Haiti coach, Nicolas Delepine, told FIFA.com, “We’ve focused on two key areas. The first: reinforcing what they like to do, which is to attack, put pressure on the opposition, create 1v1 situations, run and go towards the opposition goal. We’ve really worked on that because we’re very strong in attack.
“We also realise that our opponents see us as a very attack-minded team that struggles to defend, so we’ve looked to address those weak points too. As long as we’re disciplined and organised, we’ve got so much energy, weapons and flair in attack that we can take down virtually any team.
“Our biggest strength is obviously our athleticism. We’re explosive and quick, which are pretty unique assets to have in women’s football. We’re also trying to work on our individual skills, which we could do with improving a little bit.”
With a group made up of China, Denmark and European Champions England the chances of Haiti making it out of the group stage is very unlikely unless players like : Roseline Eloissaint (Nantes), Melchie Dumornay (Reims) or Darlina Joseph (Grenoble) can find there finishing touch.
Haiti has never qualified for the FIFA Women’s World Cup before which means that Nicolas Delépine will not only be restoring pride to the nation but he will also be setting the expectations of the Haiti Women’s national team for years to come.
