Hardship makes Haitians winners

Labaze was speaking as he danced with his players in celebration of their 1-0 victory over Trinidad and Tobago at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo on Friday.

The result put them through to today’s final against Mexico in the Caribbean Football Union Youth Cup and also crowned them Caribbean champions.

The Haitians go for the championship title from 4pm at the Hasely Crawford Stadium while TT and Jamaica clash from 2 pm at the same venue for third place honours.

Haiti, Jamaica and TT are through to the final round of CONCACAF qualification which takes place in Honduras and Jamaica in April 2007 towards the FIFA Under-17 World Champ-ionships in South Korea.

“This win over Trinidad brings us a high level of satisfaction. It gives us a lot of hope and it means the world to our players who have worked very hard for it,” Labaze said through a translator— Nnamdi Hodge, who is also the team’s liaison officer for the tournament.

“We have benefited from being together for a long time at the national academy. From the time we started to work together we had our ambitions on doing well at this level. We worked for a long while before political events caused us to break up for a month in 2004 but we came back together and we kept on working,” Labaze said.

He emphasised the hardships experienced by the players, many of them coming from broken homes and with little other than football to look forward to.

At least four of their Under-17 players of last season have gone on to play professionally in Argentina, Uruguay and United States, Labaze said. “Things are very hard in Haiti and coming to play this tournament in Trinidad was a great thing for the players. What we do is use the talent and the hunger for football to help overcome the hard way of life in Haiti.

“This is what the young players use as a way of making something better for themselves and the success here is a big achievement for them,” he said.

“We want to send a message to the leaders in Haiti with this victory. We want to let them know that the young talent like these players cannot be neglected.

“Politics is important but taking care of things like sport like our football is equally important. Through football our flag can be waved around the world,” Labaze said, noting that his people had followed what the Soca Warriors achieved in Germany.

“A lot of our people supported Brazil and Argentina but we felt proud to see Trinidad (and Tobago) at the World Cup. They represented us and they did it well. They gave us hope and showed us what can happen through football. In 1974 we went and this time it was Trinidad’s turn and we were very happy for them,” Labaze said.

And while the Haitian footballers are preparing for the Digicel Caribbean Cup, the Under-16s have an eye on their first senior international cap. “We are working hard with our Under-16, Under-18, and Under- 20 teams and then everyone wants to be with the senior team. We have some hope for the future,” Labaze said.