Brisbane, Australia (AP) — Despite a narrow 1-0 loss in its opening match of the Women’s World Cup, Haiti treated fans to a spirited performance against European champion England.
The kind of spirit showed was nothing new for a Haiti squad that has faced a difficult journey just to make it to the tournament being co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, arriving for its World Cup debut with no sponsors and no home games to prepare.
The Haitians are representing a struggling nation that had been waiting nearly half a century to play on the game’s biggest stage. Its last involvement was when Haiti’s men’s team played in the 1974 World Cup in West Germany.
“We’re very proud of our performance,” coach Nicholas Delépine said. “We’ve worked very hard and for us it was a huge test. We were very close to England. We were very…