Back in Boston before the World Cup, Frantzdy Pierrot spent a morning giving back at Boston International Newcomers Academy, with immigrant students who came to soccer the same way he did.
On Wednesday morning, May 27, 2026, Frantzdy Pierrot walked into Boston International Newcomers Academy in Dorchester. He met the boys and girls soccer teams, spoke with students in the library and the gym, and told them how a kid from Haiti ended up at the World Cup. Many of the students are Haitian. Many of them speak Kreyol. He was talking to them in their own language, about their own future.
The visit was one stop on a swing through Boston that week. Frantzdy was home before the World Cup, and he was using the time to give back to the community that had given him so much. That same week he was also back at his old high school in Melrose. Here he chose a Boston public high school built for students who arrive in the United States as newcomers, many of them with their schooling interrupted. The school serves students from many countries and shares information in nine languages, including Haitian Creole.
Frantzdy came with City Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune. He arrived in Massachusetts from Haiti at age 11, so he knows the road these students are on.
Frantzdy talks with the players under the championship banners. A signed number 14 jersey went home with the team.
These were not just any students. In November 2025, the Boston International boys team won the Massachusetts Division 5 state title, beating Hopedale 2-0, the first Boston City League team ever to win a boys soccer state championship. They finished the season 20-1-2 under coach Edmar Varela. So the room held two soccer stories at once. A striker who made it from Haiti to the World Cup, and a team of newcomers who had just made history of their own. Like Frantzdy, many of them had crossed an ocean to reach that field.
The Boston International boys team, 2025 Massachusetts Division 5 state champions, the first Boston City League team to win a boys soccer state title.
Frantzdy's message was not really about soccer. He told the students to think past the game and take their education seriously. He asked them the question he wanted them carrying out of the room. We all love soccer, but what happens after soccer. We may think so, but money doesn't fall from trees.
We all love soccer, but what happens after soccer? Frantzdy Pierrot
For the players, hearing it from someone who had walked their path mattered. Steevenson Chanson, the team's captain, was one of them. We were really excited to see him, Chanson said. It was really inspiring to see him here, for real, for me, my players, and our goalie.
When Boston International won that title, their coach Edmar Varela had told them the same kind of thing. This is history, Varela said that night. This is for them. This is for their families, school communities. This is for Boston. Six months later, a World Cup player was standing in their gym, telling them their story was only starting.
For one morning, some of the newest arrivals in Boston shared a room with a player who had once been exactly where they are. Frantzdy came to remind them what is possible, and to give something back to the community that had shaped him. Sitting in front of him, state champions in a new country, they were already proof of it.