It’s been 52 years since Haiti's last World Cup appearance. Haitian New Yorkers are ready.

Joe Dessources sat in his car along Nostrand Avenue in Flatbush’s “Little Haiti” section, talking soccer.

This year’s World Cup tournament has special meaning for Brooklyn’s Haitian community, he said between stops on his weekly grocery shopping trip. It marks the island nation’s first World Cup appearance since 1974.

“It is a very moving situation for the Haitian people because of what's going on in Haiti at this moment,” Dessources said about his native country, which is facing political upheaval and persistent violence. “To have the country qualify for the World Cup, that means a lot to every Haitian, including myself.”

Dessources, 75, said he arrived in the United States from Haiti in 1972 and is now retired after a career with the U.S. Postal Service.

He said he “vividly” remembers the last time Haiti qualified for the tournament, when he was just 23. The country lost all three matches it played in the 1974 World Cup, but not before scoring a famous goal to briefly take the lead against Italy. It was the first time legendary keeper Dino Zoff had given up a goal in two years.

”Nobody could score on Dino Zoff, but we did,” Dessources said.

Soccer plays a special role in the Haitian community, helping shape identity and culture, Dessources said And Haitian Americans have helped define the sport.

Consider Joe Gaetjens, a Haitian immigrant attending Columbia University, who buried the only goal in the United States’ win over mighty England during the 1950 World Cup, one of the sport’s most famous underdog victories. Or New Jersey native Jozy Altidore. In 2010, the son of Haitian immigrants appeared in his first of two World Cup tournaments on his way to becoming the third highest goalscorer in U.S. Men's National Team history.

But it's the lesser-known figures and their memories that interest the archivists behind a growing collection at Brooklyn College’s Haitian Studies Institute. Jaïra Placide, the institute’s special projects coordinator, is working with colleagues to record interviews and compile photos, news clippings and other mementos from Haitian New Yorkers, using soccer as a central theme.

“This is how we can preserve a community's history,” Placide said inside the quiet  Daniel Simidor Reading Room on the third floor of the Brooklyn College library, where the archive is held. “Because soccer is an international sport. It unites people.”

She said Haitian Americans need that unity during exceedingly difficult times. The island nation is contending with its latest wave of political and social crises as armed gangs now control its capital, Port-au-Prince. In the United States, the Trump administration has attempted to revoke a shield against deportation for over half a million Haitian immigrants. Judges have so far blocked the decision.

“I'm extremely excited because Haiti's on the world stage again and it's not because of disaster or anything bad,” Placide said. “The celebration always pierces through all that negative dark space that continuously seems to surround us.”

The archive features interviews with a handful of Haitian New Yorkers connected to the local soccer scene, including Brooklyn College midfielder Benedick Augustin and Vertulie Vincent, a women’s soccer pioneer of the 1970s who discussed the sexism she faced as a girl playing a male-dominated sport.

Haitian Studies Institute archivist Obden Mondesir said he thinks the World Cup will inspire more people to share their own stories.

“One of the things I deal with on a regular basis as an archivist is convincing people that their materials are important,” Mondesir said. “The World Cup helps in that way. I think they're more excited.”

The archive already includes a few objects from New York City’s Haitian soccer community: a national team scarf, plaques honoring local clubs and albums stuffed with photos of former players. Most of the budding collection comes from Placide’s father, Gerard Placide, who made sure to label all of the pictures dating back to 1969.

“I was extremely lucky to have an archivist in the family,” Placide said.

Her father moved to the Upper West Side from Haiti in the late 1960s. The first thing he did, she said, was find a job at a steel mill in Mahwah, New Jersey, where he worked for 15 years before becoming a taxi driver. The second was to join a local soccer team that doubled as a social club.

“It’s the typical immigrant story,” she said. “This is how they formed camaraderie, fraternity and community.”

A black-and-white photo shows Gerard Placide crouching on the scrubby turf at Riverside Park with teammates from his club Haitian Stars during the 1970-1971 season. Another professional-quality action shot dated 1969 shows a teammate controlling the ball, his leg muscles bulging.

Placide said the photos evoke memories of her own childhood in Manhattan.

“ At one point, I was the pseudo-secretary for one of the clubs, typing up their minutes when I was in high school,” she said. “So Haitian soccer was very much alive in our home.”

She said many Haitian New Yorkers have a similar experience.

“I had to look through a lot of different places to be able to find for my project where these archives live,” she said. “And we're realizing it lives in people's houses, in people's memories.”

Gerard Placide is 89 now and spoke with Gothamist by phone from his home on the Upper West Side, his daughter Jaïra translating his Haitian Creole.

He held on to the items because he knew Haitian Americans needed to preserve their history. “Something like this didn’t exist,” he said.

He recalled watching the 1974 World Cup games with his Haitian soccer club at Symphony Space on West 95th Street in Manhattan. This time, he said, he plans to watch the World Cup matches on television with friends, draped in the red and blue of the Haitian flag, and to keep a running commentary. That could end up in the archive, too.

“The way the country is right now,” he said, “It’s great to see people come together.”