Talk about underdogs. The Haitian Women's National Team trains six months of the year in South Bend, Indiana - many miles from home - with no salary for players or coaches, used equipment and housing that has eight or nine women sharing an apartment. Back home the team is ignored and the players worry about their families living in poverty and still feeling the effects of a 2010 earthquake.
Yet the team made it through one round of qualifying for the 2015 Womens World Cup to be held in Canada and are about to embark on the final rounds of the CONCACAF Tournament to determine the three countries who will earn a spot in Canada and a fourth team who will play off against Equador for another spot.
Jere Longman reported on the Haitian team's struggles in yesterday's New York Times. "We played soccer to try to forget," Longman quotes midfielder Ketura Woodlyne-Robuste as saying.
Haiti is in a group with the United States, so presumably the best it could hope for would be a second place finish which would put it in a play-off with the other group's runner-up for the trip to Canada. The opening match is October 15 against Guatemala in Kansas City.
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