World Cup fever hits the Caribbean. Go Cu­ra­cao go! Go Haiti go! Against all odds. Be­yond pos­si­ble. Em­brace and en­joy the op­por­tu­ni­ty. The Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (CANOC) stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Cu­ra­cao and Haiti.

Yes, they are both cer­tain­ly the “Davids” among glob­al foot­ball “Go­liaths.” And yes, there may be no fairy-tale end­ing for ei­ther at the 2026 FI­FA World Cup, which gets un­der­way on Thurs­day. But both coun­tries rep­re­sent more than foot­ball–more than just a game. Both na­tions car­ry in­to this year’s glob­al foot­ball flag­ship event back­sto­ries that are in­spi­ra­tional es­says on the tri­umph of the hu­man spir­it and en­deav­our in the face of tri­als and tribu­la­tions.

​Their achieve­ment is one that, re­gard­less of which CANOC na­tion one may come from, a source of col­lec­tive Caribbean pride. Just get­ting to the “Big Show” is a World Cup win in it­self. While it is a fact that al­most every sin­gle Caribbean cit­i­zen will al­so car­ry sup­port for one of the Go­liaths, that ought not to di­min­ish our Caribbean pride and sup­port. For sure, we all want Cu­ra­cao and Haiti to give a good show­ing.

In the case of Haiti, it’s al­so about pre­sent­ing an im­age of the coun­try that ex­tends be­yond the in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia nar­ra­tive of armed gangs, po­lit­i­cal in­sta­bil­i­ty, pover­ty, and vi­o­lence against women and chil­dren.

​I read a state­ment yes­ter­day from the Hait­ian gov­ern­ment which, in part, said: ​“This qual­i­fi­ca­tion is much more than a sport­ing achieve­ment. It rep­re­sents a pow­er­ful sym­bol of hope, per­se­ver­ance, and con­fi­dence in the fu­ture of the Hait­ian Na­tion.”

​While the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) and FI­FA still pur­port that sport is apo­lit­i­cal, the truth is that it isn’t–sport mat­ters. Sport sends a mes­sage. Haiti need­ed this qual­i­fi­ca­tion for rea­sons be­yond the foot­ball field.

Haiti is drawn in Group C and will par­tic­i­pate in the World Cup for the sec­ond time. Mean­while, debu­tant Cu­ra­cao–the small­est na­tion to ever qual­i­fy for the World Cup–will com­pete in Group E in the 48-team tour­na­ment which will be the longest ever, span­ning 39 days and 104 match­es.

​In­ci­den­tal­ly, the CANOC Gen­er­al As­sem­bly this year will be held in Cu­ra­cao in Oc­to­ber.

The Cu­ra­cao Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion is of­fi­cial­ly known as the Fed­erashon Fut­bòl Kòr­sou (FFK).

​Cu­ra­cao’s qual­i­fi­ca­tion has been a long-held dream and ob­jec­tive for the for­mer pres­i­dent of the fed­er­a­tion, Rig­naal “Jean” Fran­cis­ca, who led the or­gan­i­sa­tion for 19 years. Un­der his lead­er­ship, the fed­er­a­tion heav­i­ly em­pha­sised youth pro­grammes, lay­ing the ground­work that ul­ti­mate­ly cul­mi­nat­ed in Cu­ra­cao reach­ing its first-ever FI­FA World Cup.

In De­cem­ber 2021, the fed­er­a­tion ho­n­oured his near­ly two-decade tenure by re­nam­ing the FFK Sta­di­um in Brie­ven­gat, Willem­stad, to the Sta­dion Rig­naal ‘Jean’ Fran­cis­ca. Cur­rent FFK pres­i­dent Gilbert Mar­ti­na, in a May 2026 news­pa­per ar­ti­cle, was quot­ed as say­ing: ​“This project be­gan 25 years ago with our first fed­er­a­tion pres­i­dent, Mr. Fran­cis­ca.”

​In the case of Haiti, it’s a re­mark­able sto­ry of how qual­i­fi­ca­tion was achieved amidst an on­go­ing hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis. Haiti couldn’t play any of its match­es at home. In fact, head coach Sébastien Migné has nev­er even set foot in­side the coun­try.

​Many of the na­tion­al team play­ers were born, raised, and re­side abroad. Wood­en­sky Pierre is one of the few play­ers who grew up in Haiti, still lives there, and plays in the coun­try’s do­mes­tic foot­ball league.

Cred­it must go to Marie Monique An­dré, pres­i­dent of the FI­FA-ap­point­ed nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee for Hait­ian foot­ball since 2020. Her task sure­ly isn’t an easy one.

​The eyes of the world will be on Cu­ra­cao and Haiti, and by ex­ten­sion, the Caribbean.

​Go Cu­ra­cao go! Go Haiti go! Rep­re­sent with pride and pas­sion!