From Haiti to Melrose to FIFA’s biggest stage — the World Cup — Frantzdy Pierrot enjoying his trip home
FOXBOROUGH — The clock had just crossed the 78th minute when Haiti striker Frantzdy Pierrot lifted his 6-foot-4-inch body from the green grass below. He rose above Scotland defender Grant Hanley and put his head on the ball. It sailed toward the Scottish net and, for just a moment, it seemed Pierrot was about to bring a storybook ending to life inside Boston Stadium, otherwise known as Gillette.
Alas, the ball sailed wide left, effectively taking Haiti’s chances with it. Scotland won Boston’s World Cup opening night, via both a 1-0 scoreline in Group C play and via their countless kilts and never-ending songs.
Yet there amid the sound of bagpipes and choruses of Loch Lomond were plenty of scenes of love for another great Boston diaspora, the one to which Pierrot belongs. As banners, posters, flags, and jerseys in support of Haiti proudly made their way down Route 1, into the stadium parking lots, and eventually into the stands, the extra love for Pierrot spoke to the special resonance he has with Boston.
Officially, Pierrot is here to lead the country of his birth onto one of the world’s greatest sporting stages.
Emotionally, he is here to represent the best kind of dream his adopted country can offer.
“It’s like he’s coming home again,” said Dean Serino, who coached Pierrot at Melrose High.
Massachusetts became home for the Pierrot family when their second of four sons, Frantdzy, was 11 years old. Like so many immigrant families across our great nation, the Pierrots uprooted the only life they knew in search of better opportunity.
A big part of their story was soccer, with the kids spending formative years playing in Haiti’s streets, often using a rock, a ball of rags, or a piece of round fruit as a ball. Sports, as it so often does, opened doors in their adopted home of Melrose, where Serino, the longtime coach of the boys’ high school program, had been building his own soccer family.
From grassroots camps to adult alumni connections, it was in that family that Pierrot flourished, growing from a lanky young freshman into the imposing 192-pound forward who took the field for Haiti in its World Cup opener. He did it by outworking anyone in his realm.
“He was pretty good when he got here — a raw athlete, definitely good enough to make the [Melrose] varsity team, but the cool thing about his story, and it sounds cliché, but genuinely, everywhere he went he was betting on himself and he went on to become that team’s best player,” recalled Anthony McElligot, a senior midfielder when Pierrot arrived who is now Serino’s assistant coach and a math teacher.
“All he needed was the opportunity.”
As teammates, Pierrot and McElligot helped Melrose make a playoff run, but it was after McElligot went off to UMass and returned for a visit that he saw the difference in his old friend.
“Such a big jump in his skill, his confidence. By his sophomore year it was pretty clear he was a pretty special player,” McElligot said. “[Pierrot] just worked so hard — up at 5 a.m. to practice before school. No matter when he went, he would have done this.”
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Serino remembered that, too.
“He got so big and strong it was tough to get the ball off his foot,” he said. “I remember in high school you could chop this guy down with an ax and he’d still have the ball at his feet.”
As McElligot put it: “He is self-made.”
From those two seasons in Melrose, a path was laid. Two years of academy soccer at Seacoast United. Two seasons at Northeastern before transferring to Coastal Carolina. A pro career overseas, including his current contract with AEK Athens. And now, at 31 years old, the World Cup.
“He is an amazing human being,” said Brendan Burke, head coach of the USL’s Hartford Athletic, who was the associate head coach at Northeastern when Pierrot was there. “When you’re around him, he’s just a big friendly kid, but he outworks you. He’ll run you over; it’s hard to describe, but he will just beat the person in front of him. He represents all the good things that can happen in this game.”
Self-made, and self aware. Now, on the World Cup stage in his adopted homeland, he is determined to make change for his original, one beset by so much violence that home games have been impossible.
In late May, Pierrot was back in Boston, honored with his own day by Governor Maura Healey, and he spoke so gratefully of his time in Massachusetts, what Melrose did for him, what he learned about giving back, like the youth soccer academy he is building in Haiti.
“Melrose gave me everything,” he told supporters that day.
Yet it was the next day, when Pierrot requested a visit back at his old school, that spoke even more to who he is. Serino watched, heart full, as Pierrot reconnected with old teachers, ribbing the one who still loved to drink Mountain Dew, revisiting the old Pop-Tarts machine that had fed him plenty of snacks.
He watched as kids who had barely heard Pierrot’s name were captivated by his words, stories of old teammates who had passed along their extra cleats or coaches who handed him brand new balls. He watched Pierrot spend hours as kids hung on for selfies and handshakes. Finally, he was dragged away.
He left with a special gift. Serino, who had updated the team’s uniforms years ago, eventually took the old jerseys out of storage and distributed them to as many alums as he could find. He handed the rest to McElligot for safekeeping. When Pierrot’s visit was set, McElligot opened those boxes. And there it was.
No. 14.
“He actually told us the reason he wears No. 14 in the pros is because of that jersey,” McEllligot said.
He wore No. 20 for his national team Saturday, but 14 has always remained special. Back in high school, it was a simple choice. As a freshman, it was one of the only options left. But what it represented then — the bus rides with his father at the wheel, the practices with the teammates by his side — is what it means to him now.
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From Melrose to the World Cup. What a ride.
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