SPECIAL INTERVIEW: Haiti's Hopes and Dreams, with Jean-Ricardo Compere

In this excerpt from a longer discussion on Haiti's hopes and dreams for the World Cup, Paul Schmidt-Troschke & Jon Bonfiglio speak to Haitian entrepreneur Jean-Ricardo Compere for his perspective. The full episode is available on the World Cup Football Etc/World Sports Etc Patreon page: 

https://tinyurl.com/FriendsofWorldSportsetcPatreon

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Hello and welcome to World Cup etc. with me, Port Metroschke, and another fascinating interview in our three-part series on football in Haiti, available on our Friends of World Sports Etc. Patreon page, to which you can find the link in the show notes or the episode description. Today I have got an excerpt of the interview John Bonfilio and I conducted with Haitian Jean-Ricardo Compare, himself a very successful Haitian social media influencer with his Instagram page called Hidden Sights of Haiti. He lives in the beautiful Caribbean nation. My colleague John Bonfilio and I were very fortunate to visit already. And Ricky gives you on the ground insights. You're not going to get anywhere else into the Haitian football mind and heart, plus everything surrounding the mysterious ways in which this national team works and what jokers it might have up its sleeves to surprise the world. And if you want to listen to the whole interview, you can get access to this episode on our Friends of World Sports etc. Patreon page. Today the topic is of course Haiti in the World Cup. And with less than 40 days to go until the start of the tournament, um yeah, let's uh let's hear how the atmosphere um is feeling in Haiti right now. Um what are the hopes and uh the expectations for the Haitian national team? And um yeah, so maybe let's start with uh with is is uh the the World Cup already uh a talking point in in everyday conversations, or are Haitians uh too occupied with uh I mean basically surviving from day to day uh so that they can't think about that yet.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

So I mean the climate is you can feel it, you can feel the energy, you can feel the the the the the hope of seeing us playing on this big stage. You can feel you can you can feel uh how Haitian are crowd because we we there are not like too many teams that qualify for in the in the region for this tournament. So so everywhere you see some Haitians start having their jersey and getting their flag ready. We're just a couple days away from from from the World Cup. So yeah, so the unready is there everywhere. People are talking about that. So we only can't wait to see Ox kicking the ball and the tournament.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Yeah, lovely. I mean, of course, one uh one other uh smaller, much smaller island nation, um the compared to Haiti is exactly as Kuraçao, which was the the venue in which uh the uh in which Haiti played there for for the last uh uh five years, I I think, right? Uh one when was the last time the Haitian national team actually played in uh in Port au Prince?

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Oh, we're not it's been a very long time. I don't remember the the exact day, but I think it's it's it's a very long time since the president was in power, unfortunately. At the time, Port-au-Prince was not controlled fully by the gangs, so yeah, it's been a very long time. So yeah, you you make a very good quit because we qualify without even playing uh once in our in our stadium home. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Yeah, I mean uh that that in itself, of course, is already a historical and uh yeah, just admirable, um admirable uh success um in in the story uh to be written of the Haitian national uh national football. And um next uh we come of course to uh the hopes and expectations of Haitians. Maybe we start with the group Haiti finds itself in, uh since uh let's say uh the competition is uh is not easy to say the least.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Yes, it's not easy at all. So we know that because you like I've said earlier, so we're in a whoop or is it is in a whoop, so we can't we can't take that. We can we can think that it's gonna it's gonna be uh uneasy, uneasy, uneasy whoop. So but we still have hope. We're still thinking thinking we're gonna we're gonna well we're gonna be we we're gonna be well represented at at the stream, but we still hope even though we know it's it's gonna be so hard, but you know, we still hope we're gonna we're gonna do our best. So uh we have some big names coming coming playing for us, like Islidor, like Belgarde, like some some other some I mean the the the the Haitian Federation says that they're gonna be some big names coming before before before the World Cup. So I'm waiting for the list coming out to see who is who is new in the boop and what is going to bring for us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

So that's it from us for today.

SPEAKER_04 5:29

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SPEAKER_05 5:47

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SPEAKER_01 5:54

Also check out our World Sports, etc. podcast for more sports news and stories. And with that, thank you so much for listening and goodbye.