Baku, Azerbaijan – October 26, 2026: Haiti’s under-15 men’s national football team, nicknamed the Young Grenadiers, etched their names in the Caribbean nation’s sporting history on Sunday, October 25, notching the very first FIFA World Cup victory ever claimed by any Haitian senior or youth national side, with a dominant 6-0 rout of Timor-Leste at Baku’s Hovsan Sports Complex during the opening edition of the FIFA U-15 World Cup Festival.
Heading into the Group AF fixture, the Haitian squad was still reeling from a hard-fought 3-1 opening match defeat to Australia, prompting Cuban head coach Raúl Valentín González Triana to make two targeted adjustments to his 8-a-side starting lineup, retaining the core group that faced Australia while inserting fresh attacking talent Christopher Charles and Clavens Myrthil to boost offensive output. The tactical shift paid immediate dividends, as Charles broke the deadlock in the 9th minute to put Haiti up 1-0, sparking a relentless attacking onslaught that never let up.
The second goal of the afternoon came in the 16th minute, when Timor-Leste defender Ginaldo Da Silva turned the ball into his own net under intense pressing pressure from the Haitian front line, stretching the lead to 2-0. Young forward John Laroque then seized control of the match with two quickfire strikes: his first in the 24th minute pushed Haiti’s advantage to 3-0, and he doubled his personal tally just two minutes later to make it 4-0. Myrthil, one of the two new starters drafted in for the Timor-Leste tie, found the scoresheet in the 31st minute to make it 5-0, before team captain Aridou Benoit – a homegrown talent developed at Haiti’s renowned Jacmel Football Academy – put the finishing touches on the lopsided result with a 38th minute goal just ahead of full-time.
The landmark three points lifts Haiti to third place in the Group AF provisional standings after two group stage outings, with 7 total goals scored, 3 conceded, 1 win and 1 loss for 3 total points. Top of the table are co-leaders Australia and host nation Azerbaijan, both holding a perfect 2-0 record and 6 points each, followed by Haiti, then Israel and Andorra tied on 1 point apiece, and Timor-Leste anchored at the bottom of the group with zero points from two matches and 12 total goals conceded.
The tournament, an innovative new FIFA youth competition, uses a unique modified rule set tailored for youth development: every match runs just 40 minutes total, split into two 20-minute halves, played on a reduced-sized pitch measuring roughly 68 meters by 47 meters (half the area of a standard senior football pitch) while retaining full-sized goals. All fixtures are contested as 8-a-side matches, with each national squad limited to a maximum of 14 registered players, with the same FIFA regulatory framework applied uniformly across all group stage, classification and final matches.
Haiti’s Young Grenadiers will return to the pitch on Monday, October 26 for two remaining group stage fixtures: first a clash against Andorra’s “Les Tricolors” national side, followed by a highly anticipated showdown against host nation Azerbaijan’s “Odlar Yurdu” team.