"We could not be any more proud... I'm touching history right now." That was a fan at Port-au-Prince airport on Tuesday, hugging Woodensky Pierre before he boarded his flight to Florida. It's a line that lands harder when you know where Pierre comes from.
The US government finally granted the 2026 World Cup visa to Haiti's only home-based squad member after days of genuine uncertainty. Pierre plays for Violette AC out of Cite Soleil — a neighborhood in western Port-au-Prince where gangs control roughly 70% of the surrounding capital and where the national team's own stadium was deemed too dangerous to use. Haiti played their home World Cup qualifiers over 1,000 kilometres away in Curaçao. That's the context for this story.
The last man to arrive
Pierre's 25 overseas-based teammates had already been in Florida for a week when the visa question was still unresolved. The Trump administration's extended travel restrictions on Haiti left the defensive midfielder in limbo, training with local players in an upscale part of Port-au-Prince while the rest of the squad prepared for the biggest tournament in football. Haiti's football federation spokesperson Thecieux Jeanty confirmed Pierre boarded his flight Tuesday and has now linked up with the national camp.
"It was a great moment for him, a moment of happiness," Jeanty told the press. Airport workers took photos with him. His mother hugged him several times. The scenes were genuine — not manufactured.
This is only Haiti's second-ever World Cup appearance. The first was in 1974 — more than half a century ago. Group fixtures don't get much steeper: Scotland on June 13 in Foxborough, Brazil on June 19 in Philadelphia, then Morocco on June 24 in Atlanta. Any World Cup betting market on Haiti's group stage prospects has to account for a squad that was still waiting on a single player's travel documents days out from the tournament.
Pierre's absence would have hurt more than one spot
Pierre isn't squad depth. He's the only player in the group with lived, current experience of Haitian domestic football — of playing under those conditions, in that environment. That perspective inside a dressing room isn't nothing. For a nation that can't even host its own qualifiers safely, having that thread to home matters.
The cruel footnote: most Haitian supporters won't see any of it in person. Visa restrictions and travel bans mean the fans who packed that airport in Port-au-Prince are almost certainly watching from there. Pierre made it. They won't.
