CHICKENPIE.Wilson Isidor caught it on the half-volley, just inside the box, in the 43rd minute at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. He hit it with the laces of his right foot, no backlift, no hesitation. The ball left his boot and began to climb. By the time Morocco's goalkeeper — Yassine Bounou, the Sevilla man, one of the best in Africa — got his fingers anywhere near it, the ball had already passed him into the top corner. The stadium erupted. A country of eleven million people, watching on the other side of the world, erupted. Haiti had scored a World Cup goal. For the first time in fifty-two years.
Haiti was at the 1974 World Cup in West Germany. They were the first Caribbean nation ever to qualify. They played in Group 2 against Italy, Argentina, and Poland. They scored one goal — a single Emmanuel Sanon strike against Dino Zoff in the 1-1 draw with Italy, the goal that knocked Zoff's Italy out and sent Argentina through. After that, Haiti did not return to a World Cup for fifty-two years. They tried. They kept trying. They qualified again for 2026 — the expanded 48-team tournament — and on Tuesday night in Atlanta, the long wait ended. Isidor put it in the top corner. The Les Grenadiers had scored.
The first Haiti goal was actually credited to a Bounou own-goal — a deflection off the Sevilla keeper in the 10th minute — but it was Isidor's strike in the 43rd that broke the stadium open. Morocco had equalized through Achraf Hakimi, the PSG man, in the 39th minute. Then Isidor, the 25-year-old forward playing his first World Cup, hit one from the edge of the box that Bounou had no chance with. By halftime the score was 2-2. Morocco would go on to win 4-2 — Saibari, Rahimi, and Yassine in the second half — but the Haitian moment was the one everyone remembered. The flag went up in Atlanta. The flag went up in Port-au-Prince. The flag went up in Brooklyn, in Montreal, in the Bronx. Wherever Haitians were watching, the flag went up.
Fifty-two years. We came back for a reason. The country needed this. — Wilson Isidor
The goalkeeper behind the goals was Johny Placide, the 37-year-old veteran from Croix-des-Bouquets, who plays in the lower divisions of French football and has been Haiti's #1 for more than a decade. He couldn't keep the clean sheet — Morocco's second-half quality was too much — but he made a double save in the 71st minute that kept Haiti within one. The Reuters post on the play said the second save was the kind that gets a mid-table Ligue 2 keeper a phone call from a bigger club. The first save kept out a point-blank header from Yassine. The second save, off the rebound, kept out the follow-up from Saibari. A 37-year-old on a World Cup stage, doing what 37-year-olds do: making sure the kid up front has something to celebrate.
Haiti still has one more group match to play. They are in Group C with Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea. The loss puts them in a tough position to advance — they'd need a result against South Korea and a Morocco loss to Saudi Arabia — but the goal was the bigger story. The number that matters: fifty-two. Years since the last one. Years the country waited to sing again at a World Cup. Wilson Isidor, on a half-volley in Atlanta, on a Tuesday night in June, finally gave them something to sing about.
Daily art caricature by Chickenpie — World Cup 2026.
