Steve Clarke is duty-bound to speak kindly of Haiti the way he did through the week. Tell the truth about them being eminently beatable opposition and you’re setting yourself up for a fall — rather like those national associations who hand their managers whopping new four-year contracts before a ball has even been kicked at the World Cup.
There will be plenty more of this over the coming days. Players will no doubt regurgitate Clarke’s lines about the Caribbean outfit being athletic and physical and fast on the break. How often will we hear about the early hours of Sunday morning promising a ‘difficult match’ and proving the old chestnut that ‘there are no easy games at this level’?
That’s fine. That’s player-speak. No drama. Can the rest of us get a grip, though?
Listening to some of the chat after Haiti’s 4-0 friendly win over New Zealand in Miami, a basketball game that could have had any kind of scoreline thanks to a largely appalling show from the Kiwis, you’d think people are actually trying to will more of that failure against football’s flotsam and jetsam that has scarred so many World Cups of the past into existence.
Yeah, we know what happened against Costa Rica in the opener in 1990. And Iran in 1978. As if anyone who sat through them could forget. They mean nothing now, though. They’re nothing to do with this team. And the simple fact is that this team should — and must — wipe the floor with Sebastien Migne’s side in Boston (or Foxborough, if you prefer to be pedantic) at the weekend.
Perhaps Haiti’s 2-1 loss to a truly dreadful Peru outfit — second-bottom in the CONMEBOL qualifiers with two wins from 18 fixtures and six goals scored — in the early hours of yesterday morning might bring folk to their senses.
Steve Clarke was keen to stress the dangers of Haiti but he should be looking for a big win
Yet, it might not. Haiti were the better team in the first half and led 1-0 before a raft of changes resulted in them conceding two shockers from set-pieces late on. If you are determined to be a harbinger of doom, someone who wallows in the perpetually underwhelming nature of Scottish existence and those now near-mythical tales of glorious failure on repeat, you can point to mitigating circumstances.
Listen, Haiti do have a handful of players who stand out from the crowd. Wilson Isidor’s smart finish against Peru was his second in four caps since answering the call from his father’s country of birth. He scored 13 goals in Sunderland’s promotion season of 2024-25 and still managed six in the English Premier League last term despite only starting 11 times.
Midfielder Jean-Ricner Bellegarde cost Wolves £12.8million from Strasbourg in 2023. Over three years in the Premier League — including last year’s relegation — he has started something in the region of half their games.
Right-back Carlens Arcus was a solid starter for Angers, who finished 13th in Ligue 1, before injury caught up with him at the end of last term. Hannes Delcroix turns out regularly for Lugano in the top end of the Swiss Super League.
We’re not under the misapprehension here that Haiti’s squad have only just turned up in the United States straight from playing coconut keepy-uppy around the mangroves back home. Some of them have carved out decent careers, but their top guys aren’t on the same planet as our top guys. Let’s get real here.
Scott McTominay is one of the best midfielders in Serie A, a title-winner with Napoli and voted the league’s best player in 2025. John McGinn has just captained Aston Villa to the Europa League and a fourth-place finish in the EPL.
Andy Robertson is a Champions League winner and, although 32 now, has just landed a high-profile move to Spurs. Lewis Ferguson was voted the best midfielder in Serie A in 2024 before suffering the considerable setback of cruciate ligament damage.
Beyond them, there is a core of players boasting extensive top-level experience with high-performing clubs such as Ryan Christie, Aaron Hickey and Kieran Tierney. Bournemouth invested £25million in Ben Gannon-Doak. Che Adams operates in Serie A. Scott McKenna won a double in Croatia.
Haiti led for most of the final warm-up against Peru but were brushed aside late on and lost 2-1
Haiti’s 4-0 thumping of New Zealand was held up as a warning but in truth the Kiwis were poor
Compare that with Haiti. The team which started that loss to Peru is generally viewed as being pretty close to the XI that will take the field against Scotland.
Their 38-year-old keeper Johny Placide, perhaps best described as erratic, has just been relegated to the French third-tier with Bastia. Martin Experience was in and out of the team at Nancy in Ligue 2 last term. Ricardo Ade is seen as their strongest centre-back, but he’s 36 now and his club, LDU Quito, are miles off the pace in the Ecuadorian league after giving up the crown to Independiente del Valle last term.
Louicious Deedson tends to be a sub at FC Dallas. Jean-Jacques Danley is rock bottom of the MLS with Philadelphia Union. Winger Ruben Providence is in the Dutch second tier with Almere City.
Up front beside Isidor was Frantzdy Pierrot. The 31-year-old is a national hero, but he was sent out to mid-table Turkish outfit Rizespor from AEK Athens on loan in January and didn’t start a game. Of those who came on against Peru, Duckens Nazon, once of St Mirren, was last seen playing in Iran.
Lenny Joseph is one of several French-born players recently recruited and he did score 16 goals with Hungarian outfit Ferencvaros last season.
Others brought in along with him and Isidor are Josue Casimir, who started 16 games in Ligue 1 with an Auxerre side which only just avoided relegation, Keeto Thermoncy of Young Boys of Berne’s youth set-up and Dominique Simon of Slovakians Tatran Presov.
It’s hardly a Rest of the World Select we are up against here. Yes, the Haitians are fun to watch. They pour forward in droves, have a bit of pace, get about the pitch well and will take a bit of handling.
However, they look like they can easily be sprung at the back, and there’s a definite lack of killer quality in key areas. Sure, they won their CONCACAF third round qualifying group with three wins from six against Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras, but, in the grand scheme of things, they remain low-end lightweights at this level.
They also went down 5-1 to Curacao in finishing second to them in the previous group phase.
One win could be enough to get Scotland through to the knockouts for the first time ever thanks to the general idiocy of modern tournaments. Morocco and Brazil will be entirely different challenges later in Group C, so Clarke and his players need to grasp the thistle here.
Steve Clarke has too many big names in his squad to be contemplating anything but victory
They need to beat a Haiti side lacking their talent and big-tournament experience and beat them well. They will know that behind-doors, of course, no matter what is said in public.
It’s the rest of us that need a reality check.
Clarke did warn midweek of a Scottish habit of looking at smaller nations and thinking they aren’t very good. But Haiti aren’t very good. Their first-pick players generally aren’t at the same echelons of the food chain as ours.
To say so isn’t ignorant or dismissive. We have issues ourselves at goalkeeper and in terms of the best blends up front and at in central defensive positions, but we have better players than Haiti, bigger earners at far bigger clubs, and it’s a nonsense to suggest we shouldn’t give them a pounding.
There, that’s it out there. What needs to be said after days of panic-stricken poppycock from a nation that feels like it’s waiting for a disaster to happen. Famous last words and all that.
