Haiti’s World Cup journey has come to an end following a 3-0 defeat to Brazil, but coach Sebastien Migne believes his players have shown they deserve to compete on football’s biggest stage.
The Caribbean side were eliminated after suffering their second defeat of the tournament, with Migne lamenting the mistakes that led to Brazil’s opening two goals.
“Maybe we were a little bit naive with the first two goals, and after that it’s done and set and it gets trickier and trickier by the minute,” Migne said after the match.
Despite the loss, the Haiti coach praised his players for their efforts throughout the tournament and insisted the team had proven they belong among the world’s best nations.
“They showed that they deserved to be here at the World Cup,” he said. “Unfortunately, today we played against Brazil and there was too much of a gap. If you want to perform well, everything needs to be aligned, and today we made two mistakes.”
Haiti’s elimination means their first World Cup appearance in 52 years will end at the group stage, but Migne urged supporters to remember the significance of the achievement.
“It has been 52 years since we took part in the World Cup. It’s something that we need to keep in mind,” he said. “We will respect the fans. I know that the players, I can trust them.”
While disappointed by the result, Migne acknowledged Brazil’s superiority and called on his squad to use the experience as motivation for the future.
“That’s it, they were better than us. We need to learn lessons from that and we need to come back stronger.”
Haiti still have one group match remaining against Morocco, and Migne wants his players to finish their campaign on a positive note against the 2022 World Cup semi-finalists.
“Five days from now, we play Morocco, a semi-finalist from the last edition, and we will need to make our fans and our supporters proud,” he added.
