How Les Grenadiers reached the World Cup without a single home game

Haiti reached the 2026 World Cup without playing one qualifier on home soil. This is the story of the most improbable qualification in CONCACAF.

With the security crisis making matches in Port-au-Prince impossible, every “home” fixture was played at neutral venues, most of them in Curaçao. Head coach Sébastien Migné has famously never set foot in the country he leads.

Drawn against Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua in the final round, Haiti drew twice, beat Nicaragua, then took a bruising 3-0 loss to Honduras that left qualification hanging by a thread. Les Grenadiers answered with a 1-0 win over Costa Rica, and on the final matchday, November 18, beat Nicaragua 2-0 in Curaçao while results elsewhere fell their way. Haiti topped the group.

It is Haiti’s second World Cup ever, 52 years after the 1974 team of Manno Sanon. For kids in Cap-Haïtien and Brooklyn alike, the lesson of this team, displaced, underfunded, unbeaten by any of it, needs no translation.