Borkowski's Haiti ready to take crucial first step - WOMEN'S FOOTBALL
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Cameroon, Costa Rica, Côte d'Ivoire, Ecuador, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and Thailand: what do all of these teams have in common? They all made their FIFA Women’s World Cup™ debuts this year in Canada. They all took that vital first step.
Often a crucial step for a country's development is to qualify for their first FIFA tournament. For Haiti women’s national team coach Shek Borkowski, he’s looking for that one chance, and he’s not necessarily hoping for it to be at a senior Women’s World Cup. For him, true signs of growth will be realised at the U-17 and U-20 levels.
Haiti’s U-20 team are preparing for the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Women’s U-20 finals, set to take place between 14-23 October, so what better way to get ready for the tournament than to face world champions USA in a pair of friendlies? This past September, Borkowski’s young side had the opportunity to go up against a squad who he labels as “possibly the best team ever”. The matches were a part of USA’s World Cup victory tour. Haiti lost the first match 5-0 and the second 8-0.
“I told them, ‘Don’t worry about the result, let’s concentrate on performance’”, Borkowski told FIFA.com. “If you can be on the field for 90 minutes against the World Cup champions, playing at the U-20 level should be relatively easy.”
Borkowski took over Haiti's entire women's programme in the spring of 2012 and he has had a clear goal in mind for the team ever since. “Our vision was to, within five years, qualify for the World Cup at the U-17 or U-20 level, and then build on it,” Borkowski said. “This is the fourth year, so our hopes are that this cycle we’ll be able to make a serious attempt to qualify for the tournaments. For us, we have made some progress. The players are more professional in the way they train and envisioning themselves playing at a high level down the road.
“This trip to the United States was so fantastic for them. They saw something that was not visible to them before. They had no comprehension of it. Thirty-five thousand people watch a women’s game? It was unbelievable for them. It opened their eyes and gave them the hunger to get involved at the highest level. It’s one thing watching games on TV but it’s another thing to listen to your national anthem in front of 35,000 people, and before kick-off you’re shaking hands with Carli Lloyd. All of a sudden it makes it real.”
Any little success is important
Now that Haiti have had experiences such as competing against world champions USA, they are slowly but surely changing attitudes within their dressing room and with football fans back home. They believe.
“We’re making baby steps," Borkowski said. "For us any little success is critical. We’re also finally getting to the point where football fans in Haiti are starting to notice and follow us. They’re starting to believe that we’re on our way to produce something pretty good. I’m not going to hide it. We’re very, very hopeful for the U-17 and U-20 teams to be competitive at the CONCACAF level.
"Before we were going to the CONCACAF U-17 and U-20 tournaments simply for experience," he continued. "We knew we weren’t going to qualify. It was beyond us. We’re now at a point where we have the mentality to believe we can qualify out of CONCACAF for the World Cup at the youth level. Every time we’re together we’re talking about, ‘What will it take for us to qualify for the World Cup?’ What’s required in terms of commitment, physical preparation, technical mastery, organisation on the field. They’re buying into it more and more. They’re now seeing what it takes.”
The road to qualify for either the U-17 or U-20 Women’s World Cup for Haiti begins with the CFU U-20 finals next week, where they will go up against Bermuda, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico in Group A. The top three teams from the tournament will advance to the 2015 CONCACAF U-20 Championship, to be played from 3-13 December in Honduras. The U-17 CFU finals take place in November in Puerto Rico with the top three teams qualifying for the 2016 CONCACAF Women’s U-17 Championship to be held from 3-13 March in Grenada.
For the Haiti women’s national team programme, they are hungry to show the world they are ready to take that crucial first step.