"I hope he doesn't have to live in Haiti after the World Cup." That line, from Haitian football federation spokesperson Thecieux Jeanty, tells you everything about what's at stake for Woodensky Pierre — and it goes well beyond football.
Pierre is a defensive midfielder for Violette AC, based in Port-au-Prince at a time when roughly 70 percent of the city is under gang control. He's the only player in Haiti's 25-man World Cup squad who still lives and trains at home. Everyone else is in England, France, Portugal, Canada, or the United States. Pierre is in Pétion-Ville, kicking a ball on a synthetic pitch, waiting for a US visa that hasn't come through.
Trump's travel restrictions are the obstacle
This isn't bureaucratic slowness. The US under Donald Trump has been tightening travel restrictions from Haiti, and Pierre along with nearly a dozen Haitian federation officials are caught in that net. The rest of the squad arrived in Florida on Sunday and began training in Port St. Lucie on Tuesday. Pierre is still waiting for a phone call.
He's from Cité Soleil — a seaside slum that has seen massacres, gang rapes, and recently displaced more than 5,300 people according to the UN's International Organization for Migration. The national stadium in Port-au-Prince was considered too dangerous even to host qualifiers. Haiti played their home World Cup games in Curaçao.
There is still runway here. Haiti's first World Cup group game is June 13 against Scotland in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Before that, warm-up matches against New Zealand and Peru in South Florida give Pierre some buffer. But every day of delay tightens that window.
What Pierre means to this squad — and this story
The contrast with 1974 is sharp. When Haiti last appeared at a World Cup, nearly the entire squad was playing domestically. Now Pierre is the sole link to football inside the country. Jeanty spotted him at an under-20 match in Honduras in 2022 and described him as a "top-level player." The federation wants him there. The team wants him there.
Whether the visa comes through in time will shape more than Haiti's midfield options. Pierre's situation is a referendum on who gets to participate in global football — and who gets stopped at the border before they ever get to show the world what they can do.
"There is soccer in Haiti," Jeanty said. "It's a country that wants to live."
