Haiti is out of the 2026 World Cup after back-to-back defeats in Group C, with losses to Scotland and Brazil ending its first appearance at the tournament since 1974. The exit was confirmed after the second round of group-stage fixtures, making Haiti one of five nations already gone.
That matters now because the group stage is still only two matches old, yet the elimination list is already filling up. Sixteen of the 48 nations in the competition will be sent home by the time the group stage ends in the early hours of Sunday morning BST, and Haiti’s departure shows how quickly the field is narrowing for teams that start slowly.
Turkey have also been eliminated after successive defeats to Australia and Paraguay, while Panama have had an early exit confirmed after 1-0 losses to Ghana and Croatia. Tunisia are guaranteed to leave at the group stage after four-goal defeats to Sweden and Japan, and Jordan are mathematically unable to advance. Haiti is part of that same early wave, even if its case is the one drawing attention because this was the team’s first World Cup since 1974.
The format makes the stakes sharper than in previous tournaments. Teams finishing bottom of their group go out automatically, and the four third-placed sides with the worst records will also be eliminated. Under this system, head-to-head records replace goal difference as the main tiebreaker when teams finish level on points, which can leave less room for recovery after a poor start and more room for a direct result to decide a team’s fate.
For Haiti, the picture is now settled: the campaign is over before the knockout race has even started. The remaining question is how many more teams will be added to the list before Sunday morning BST, and which third-placed sides can still survive the cut.
