Haiti’s Record Scorer Escaped Iran Bombs. Now He Faces Scotland

Haiti’s record scorer Duckens Nazon spent the first half of 2026 fleeing a war in Iran, sleeping at a closed border, and praying his eSIM still worked. On Saturday, he’ll start for Haiti in their first World Cup match in 52 years, against Scotland, a country he briefly called home. His wife is from Morocco, another Group C opponent. The 32-year-old, who plays for Esteghlal in Tehran, has 44 international goals, the all-time Haitian record.

Forty-Eight Hours at a Closed Border

The call to evacuate came on a day Nazon had planned to leave. He was about to board a flight to Istanbul or Paris, en route to secure a French visa ahead of the World Cup, when the steward ordered everyone off the plane. The war had started.

Nazon’s route out of Tehran ran north, to the border with Azerbaijan. He was stuck at the crossing for maybe 48 hours, refused entry at first and then sent back, where he slept at the border building. What saved him was a digital decision he had made days earlier: an eSIM for his phone, bought before the strikes began, on a foreign network that kept working after the authorities cut domestic internet. The full story, in his own words, sits in the quote below. The full account of those border hours is in the his Sacked in the Morning interview in full.

I was so lucky because before the war started I bought an eSIM. After that, they cut the internet in Iran. So I had no contact and I was praying that when I reached the border I would get some signal and it worked. This saved my life.

Nazon, the Esteghlal striker, told the BBC’s Sacked in the Morning podcast that the working phone was the difference between a clean exit and a stranded one. He had used the line to reach the French embassy in Azerbaijan, who helped him secure his passport. Officials there negotiated his passage through the Azerbaijani border post. The striker then flew west to join his wife and four children, who had been staying in France, away from the conflict.

The cost of the war has been felt across the domestic game. The Persian Gulf Pro League has been suspended since the strikes began, leaving Nazon and his clubmates without a fixture list. He’s had to follow an individual training programme to stay sharp for the World Cup. Nazon has described the experience, in the same interview, in terms of relief rather than triumph. “Imagine you have your wife and your children by your side in that situation,” he said. “If you’re alone, I wouldn’t say I don’t care about my life, but you are more relaxed and taking decisions is easier and faster.”

Six Months in Paisley and a Parting Verdict

Nazon’s Scottish chapter opened in Paisley, on loan at St Mirren from the Belgian side Sint-Truiden in January 2019. He arrived as a 24-year-old, scored twice in 12 appearances and was sent off in extra time of the relegation play-off win over Dundee United that kept the club up. His verdict on the spell, delivered to the BBC, was that the football and the climate were both too much. “I remember one game we had sun, snow and rain,” he said. “After this, I was like, OK, I’m done.”

He has not been back to Scotland since 2019. The country does, however, give him one footballing friendship that has lasted the distance. Nazon’s a friend of the Scotland defender Dom Hyam, his old team-mate at Coventry City, and they’ll meet again on Saturday in Boston. St Mirren’s own announcement of his loan signing at the time described him as a “powerful” forward with a “hunger to get over and get playing again.” The Buddies’ supporters got a half-season, two goals, a red card, and a French-born striker who has since scored more for Haiti than anyone in the country’s history.

Haiti’s First World Cup Match in 52 Years

Haiti’s only previous World Cup appearance was in 1974, a tournament that ended in the group stage. The wait has spanned 52 years and three generations of fans. The squad that ended it is, by the standards of the country’s recent history, almost an away team: every qualifying match was played on foreign soil, because the security situation in Haiti kept the team in exile.

The French coach Sébastien Migné, appointed in June 2024, has never set foot in the country he manages. “It’s impossible because it’s too dangerous,” he told France Football magazine. “There are no more international flights landing there.” Migné’s side plays a 4-4-2 built on defensive discipline and rapid transitions, with attacking full-backs giving width and the forwards running the channels. The experience, he said, is now the squad’s: “The idea is to write a new story with these players.” They will write it in Group C.

Haiti qualified by finishing second behind Curaçao in Concacaf Group C, then winning the third-round section with key victories against Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Nazon’s hat-trick in a 3-3 draw at Costa Rica in September 2025 earned the point that booked Haiti’s place in the tournament. The squad that travelled to Boston includes the veteran goalkeeper Johny Placide, the midfielder Jean-Ricner Bellegarde, the forward Wilson Isidor, and Nazon. The team’s preparation has been complicated by the lack of a competitive home schedule, with friendlies staged in foreign venues to test combinations. The opener kicks off at 9 p.m. local time in Boston.

What Nazon Brings Into Group C

The draw in Group C is, for Nazon personally, a small set of coincidences. Scotland is the country where he spent the second half of the 2018-19 season. Morocco is the country his wife is from. Brazil is the team that beat Haiti 2-1 the last time they met on this stage, in the 1998 group stage.

Three opponents, three personal angles:

• Scotland: the country where Nazon spent the second half of the 2018-19 season on loan at St Mirren.
• Morocco: the country his wife is from, and the side Haiti will face in the final group match.
• Brazil: the team that beat Haiti 2-1 the last time the two met at a World Cup, in the 1998 group stage.

Nazon’s wife and their four children stayed in France, not in Tehran, while the crisis unfolded. US travel restrictions introduced under the Trump administration have made it harder for Haitian fans without existing US visas to follow the team in person, an issue that has surfaced around the tournament’s ticketing. The Scotland World Cup 2026 path at the December draw made clear that Scotland’s route starts with the lowest-ranked side in the section. Nazon is trying to keep the family details out of the football. “We are ambassadors of our country,” he told the BBC; “we don’t have to put extra pressure on ourselves.”

A Record Built Across 13 Clubs

Nazon’s place in the Haiti story is, first, a matter of arithmetic. He’s the record scorer with 44 goals from 82 senior caps, a haul built over 12 years since his debut in March 2014. The numbers behind the record include 13 clubs in eight countries, from Roye-Noyon in the French fourth tier to his current club in Tehran, with stops at Kerala Blasters in the Indian Super League and a Bulgarian title-chasing run at CSKA Sofia in between. His 27 goals in 62 games for CSKA Sofia, from 2022 to 2024, are the most prolific single-club return of his senior career. His five-goal game against Sint Maarten in 2018, in a 13-0 win, is the record for a single Haiti match. The clubs have come and gone; he has continued to turn out for Haiti.

By the numbers:

• 44 international goals: Haiti’s all-time record.
• 82 senior caps: every appearance for Haiti since his March 2014 debut.
• 13 clubs, 8 countries: stops from Vannes to Tehran in a 13-year senior career.
• 95 goals, 288 appearances: his totals in all senior club competitions.

A former St Mirren team-mate, Ryan Flynn, told the BBC that the player Scotland will face on Saturday is a finisher who does not hesitate. “He’s a player that shoots on sight, that’s for sure,” Flynn said on the BBC Scottish Football Podcast, in the team-mate’s account of his shoot-on-sight style. “It can be erratic at times, but on that, if you don’t shoot, you don’t score.” The talent, in other words, has not changed since Paisley; the setting is bigger.

His current club is one of the biggest in Iran and one of the most decorated in Asian football, and he arrived there in 2025 on a deal that included a continental campaign he has barely played in. He’s scored once in 10 league appearances and twice in 19 total games for the Tehran side, per the latest figures, before the season was suspended by the war. His 19 appearances include eight in the Asian Champions League, the continent’s most prestigious club competition, a tally that will not grow until the war ends. The personal context of the move is its own story: a record-breaking international choosing a top-flight Asian club at 31, far from the European leagues that had passed on him. The World Cup comes next.

The Boston Opener and the Stands He Wants Full

Haiti’s opener kicks off at 9 p.m. local time on Saturday at Foxborough, with Nazon the likely focal point of the attack. The match is also the one Nazon has been talking about for months, in part because of the cost. He told the BBC the issue was the only one that “starts to go in my brain” in the run-up to the tournament. “There is only one thing that starts to go in my brain,” he told the BBC. “It’s the ticket prices.” “Hopefully, this is not going to affect the crowd and people coming to the stadium, because we want this atmosphere. I’m looking forward to seeing Scottish people and Haitian people in the stadiums.”

For Haitian fans, getting to the stadium has been complicated by US travel restrictions under the Trump administration, which the US Department of State has said will not be relaxed for the World Cup. Many in the diaspora, in Boston and Miami, may be at home for the opener. Julio Midy, founder of Boston-based Radio Concorde, told Al Jazeera that the tickets are “very, very expensive” for many in the local Haitian community, a group he said cannot “afford” the trip. Nazon’s concern is for the visual, not the politics: a full stadium, a Haitian crowd, the noise of a home crowd at a World Cup match. The Group C opener preview for Scotland vs Haiti notes that both managers arrive making lineup bets the new 48-team format may not rescue. The night in Boston, for Nazon, is about something older than tactics. He has set himself a target on the pitch, and a crowd to share the result with.