Exciting Game Sees Haiti Close To Gold Cup 2017

After losing a Gold Cup qualifying match at home against French Guyana last October, Haiti had one more chance to be that much closer to the Gold Cup being played in the U.S. this summer, by playing in a 3 teams playoffs made up of T&T and Surinam in T&T. To complicate matters for Haiti, the Haitian national team coach who was already on the hot seat, Frenchman Patrice Neveu, stopped training the team because of non payment.

Haiti took a team made up mostly of local players with the Assistant Coach at the helm, the Haitian Jean Claude Josaphat. In the first game against Surinam, Haiti dominated 4-2, and in the last game against T&T, Haiti needed to not lose by more than 1 goal to advance to the final round of qualifying for the Gold Cup, as the games must be decided by a winner.

T&T needing to win by 2 goals, scored in the first minute of the game. Then in a bizarre twist of events, the refs made two controversial calls that could have affected the outcome of the game. The first goal for Haiti resulted in a foul which should have been called against Haiti, but the ref awarded Haiti the foul somehow. While the Trinis were arguing, Kervens Belfort of Haiti played a quick ball in to a wide open Haitian-American Derrick Etienne, who scored his first official goal for Haiti. A few minutes later, the 2nd controversial goal was for T&T and it was in similar fashion as the one Haiti scored. In fact, it almost seemed as though the ref was trying to make a like for like call to make up for his blunder that resulted in Haiti’s first goal.

With the game tied and Haiti in no hurry to play, the Haitian keeper had the ball at his feet waiting for the Trini player before picking it up but for a second. Somehow however, the ref called delay of game on the Haitian keeper, which seems weird because no infractions had been committed by the keeper according to the rule book.

It was Haiti’s turn this time to argue to the ref, and as we were doing just that, the Trinis did to Haiti what we had done to them earlier. They played the ball early, which resulted in their forward scoring a wide open goal.

In the ensuing mélée that followed, a Haitian Assistant Coach was sent off as no one could believe what had happened. Interestingly enough, a Haiti vs T&T match is usually played with controversy as there is no love lust between the two countries.

Haiti managed to tie the game right before the half off a corner kick by Charles Herold Jr, who found the head of Kervens Belfort and the score was 2-2.

Regulation ended that way, and it was on to Over Time.

In OT, Charles Herold found the head of Belfort again off another corner, and soon after T&T equalized.

But the victory could not be taken from Haiti that day. With 2 minutes left in OT, Charles Herold found the head of Haitian-American Andrew Jean Baptiste to bring the win home for Haiti. All but one goal for Haiti was scored off headers from corners, which is pretty impressive.

Equally impressive is the fact that Haiti scored 8 goals in 2 games, and no one can recall the last time Haiti had beaten T&T with 4 goals in a game.

A few months ago after losing to French Guyana, Haiti’s chances of making the Gold Cup in the U.S. this summer did not look good. With the controversial French coach now gone, and the team being lead by a Haitian coach, Haiti’s chances of making it have greatly increased. Haiti still has to play one more home and away series against the 5th place Central American team from their qualifying playoffs rounds for the Gold Cup, and that team is more likely to be Nicaragua or El Salvador.

Haiti is currently ranked #5 in the North American, Central America and Caribbean region known as CONCACAF. Haiti is also #1 in the Caribbean ahead of Jamaica and T&T, who are not going to the Gold Cup this year.