Haiti World Cup reunion links 1974 pioneers with 2026 squad

In South Florida, Pierre Bayonne and Ricardo Adé stood at opposite ends of Haiti’s World Cup timeline and found the same thread running between them: memory. Bayonne, now 76 and living in Orlando, was part of the 1974 side that last took Haiti to the tournament. Adé is co-captain of the 2026 squad, the group that carried Haiti back to soccer’s biggest stage after a 52-year absence.

The reunion carried particular weight because Haiti qualified on Nov. 18, 2025, a date celebrated in the country as Victory Day. The team did it without ever playing a home qualifier, completing the entire campaign in Curaçao because instability and gang violence made matches in Haiti impossible. Under coach Sébastien Migné, appointed in March 2024, Haiti earned its place in a Group C that includes Scotland, Brazil and Morocco, with group-stage matches set for Boston, Philadelphia and Atlanta.

For Bayonne, the return reopened the story of 1974, when Haiti became the first majority-Black Caribbean nation to reach a World Cup. Only 13 members of that team are still alive. Bayonne was honored in Little Haiti on May 24, 2026 by Art Beat Miami, the Little Haiti Optimist Club and community members, a gesture that linked the old generation directly to the new one now carrying the same flag. Bayonne also recalled that the 1974 side did not receive all the promises made by the Haitian Football Federation, including cash bonuses and vehicles, a reminder that Haiti’s football history has long been shaped by both pride and disappointment.

The old team’s defining moment remains the goal against Italy, a sequence Bayonne helped set in motion with Wilner Nazaire’s header, Philippe Vorbe’s pass and Emmanuel Sanon’s finish. That goal ended Dino Zoff’s 1,142-minute shutout streak and gave Haiti a place in football memory that has lasted half a century. Adé has called the 2026 qualification a dream and said Haitians “fight” through adversity, a description that fits both the team’s road through Curaçao and the wider diaspora nation watching from Haiti, Miami, Orlando and beyond.