22344: (Hermantin)Sun-Sentinel-Haiti Faces Numerous World Cup Obstacles (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>


Haiti Faces Numerous World Cup Obstacles



By TIM REYNOLDS
AP Sports Writer

June 10, 2004, 7:33 PM EDT

MIAMI -- Haiti's national soccer team knows plenty about overcoming
obstacles.

There are the daily issues, which on Thursday included being sent to the
wrong hotel, having no one from Haiti's national federation organize meals
or make payment arrangements, and having coaches scurry about at the last
minute to find practice equipment.

Those hardly seem troubling compared to the real problems. Each player is
owed months of back pay, their families and friends back home are reeling
from the bloody rebellion earlier this year, and often there seems to be no
end in sight to the despair.

So they focus on an improbable World Cup dream, hoping success will unite
their country. Haiti opens a qualifying series -- purportedly one of the
home-and-home variety -- against Jamaica on Saturday.

"The game is the only thing we have," said coach Fernando Clavijo, a former
player for the United States' men's national team. "Their determination to
do well, to really bring some happiness to a country which probably will not
see any happiness for many more years to come is overwhelming."

Haiti's designated "home" field, Miami's Orange Bowl, is 700 miles from
Port-Au-Prince, its war-torn capital city, which doesn't have a field for
the team to play on. It has a fan base in Miami, home to a large Haitian
community -- 150,000 by official estimates.

The series shifts to Kingston, Jamaica, on June 20, with the winner of the
two-game matchup advancing to a four-nation semifinal group likely to
include the United States.

"In our country, the people are suffering," forward Marc Herold Gracien
said. "When we think about it, that makes us more strong. We want to win for
the Haitian people."

Haiti has reached the final Cup field only once (1974) and is 88th in the
world rankings, 37 spots below the Reggae Boyz. Yet the Uruguayan-born
Clavijo, who became Haiti's coach Oct. 15, sees constant improvement.

"At the beginning, it was a challenge. After looking at the players, it
became a challenge with a purpose," said Clavijo, who earned 61 caps with
the U.S. "I thought we had the material on the field to do things. Then it
became an incredible challenge because of the state of the country."

He's spent thousands of dollars of his own money to cover bills the Haitian
federation hasn't paid, including the lunch tab and equipment bill Thursday.

It would be easy -- justifiable, perhaps -- for him to cut his losses and
quit.

"I didn't want to be one more of those who let these players down," Clavijo
said. "I know they've been let down so many times by people walking away or
lying to them. I didn't want to be one of those guys."

Playing an abundance of road matches isn't exactly a foreign concept to
Haiti. Since last Aug. 31, Haiti has played nine matches -- six in South
Florida, one in Nicaragua, one in Guatemala and another in Houston.

Of the national team's 28 matches since April 2001, only two were played in
Haiti. And it's probably no coincidence that in those 26 road matchups, the
Haitians have posted a mediocre 9-10-7 record. But since 1985, when afforded
the rare chance to play on home soil, Haiti has gone 16-2-6.

"We would like to play at home. Everybody would like that," said Nono
Jean-Baptiste, Haiti's Miami-based federation representative. "We did not
have the power to change the official consensus. Our country is being
rebuilt. We do not have any place to play the game. But we have a big
community in Miami. We're lucky."

During a recent training camp in Cocoa Beach, Fla., the Haitians often slept
four to a room and on bunk beds, sometimes not knowing where the money for
the next meal would come from.

Somehow, they've persevered. They routed Turks and Caicos in the opening
round of Cup qualifying in February, and are confident heading into this
round.

"People say we have to beat Jamaica, but we're already winners," Clavijo
said. "There's two kinds of people, winners and losers. No in-betweens. If
we're losers, we can make a million excuses, and we have real, valid issues.
But if we're winners, we're going to have to deal with them."
Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press

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