Haiti's national soccer team takes the field against the United States at 4:30 p.m. Saturday at NU Stadium, 1000 Stadium Dr. in Miami, marking the first home-designated quarterfinal match between the two countries in the Concacaf Nations League regional tournament. The night before kickoff, Little Haiti is throwing its own celebration, with a community pre-party featuring konpa band T-Vice set to run from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Friday at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex.
According to the Miami Herald, Les Grenadiers chose Miami as their home field for the first of two showdowns with Team USA, and community organizers are marking that return with the T-Vice pre-party at the cultural complex, located at 212 NE 59th Terrace. The soccer team is described by the Herald as beloved by its community, a sentiment reflected in the turnout the pre-party is expected to draw from soccer fans and konpa music lovers alike. The event is sponsored by Purforce Group/Route 1804 Foundation, with tickets starting at $30.52 on Eventbrite and also available for purchase on site.
Match Moved From Jamaica to Miami
Saturday's game wasn't originally slated for South Florida at all. Concacaf confirmed the match was originally scheduled for Sabina Park in Kingston, Jamaica, before the regional soccer body approved an exceptional hosting arrangement that shifted it to Nu Stadium, citing the ongoing security situation in Haiti, according to Concacaf. Under that arrangement, each match requires separate approval from Concacaf Administration, agreement from the opposing federation, and confirmation that the host stadium meets Concacaf's stadium guidelines, the organization said. The U.S. Men's National Team confirmed the switch on X, posting that Concacaf had approved the Haitian Football Federation's request to move the first leg from Kingston to Miami, while the second leg would still take place as scheduled.
Accounts differ on exactly when Haiti lost the ability to host matches on its own soil. The Guardian reports Haiti has been unable to play nominal home games within its borders since July 2021, while The Athletic reports Haitian national teams have not played on home soil since gangs took over the Stade Sylvio Cator in Port-au-Prince in 2024. Either way, Miami has become something of a substitute home turf: Haiti's two matches at Sabina Park drew an average of just 297 fans, a stark contrast to the sold-out crowd of 26,700 that packed Nu Stadium for Haiti's friendly against Peru in June, according to The Guardian.
A Decade-Old Series Keeps the Music Going
The Friday pre-party ties into a much longer-running tradition. Sounds of Little Haiti has been held monthly at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex every third Friday since 2016, and the series has grown from a neighborhood gathering into a platform that draws audiences from across South Florida and visitors seeking Haitian culture, according to WLRN. Purforce Group/Route 1804 Foundation sponsors the monthly showcases, which regularly feature Haitian bands at the cultural complex.
Following T-Vice's Friday performance, the series' next showcase will feature KAI on Nov. 20, starting at 6 p.m., with tickets starting at $36.22, the Miami Herald reports. Past editions give a sense of the going rate for these nights out: for its October 2025 event, the series listed general admission at $30.52 and VIP admission at $87.61, per WLRN.
Saturday's showdown at NU Stadium isn't Haiti's first visit to the venue this year. Haiti played Peru in a friendly there in June, a match that drew the sellout crowd referenced above and was captured in team photos by Miami Herald photographer Matias J. Ocner as players gathered before kickoff.
The Herald's coverage of the match and pre-party was written by Jacqueline Charles, who has reported on Haiti and the English-speaking Caribbean for the paper for over a decade. Charles was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her coverage of the 2010 Haiti earthquake and received the 2018 Maria Moors Cabot Prize, described as the most prestigious award for coverage of the Americas.
