Tuesday is the anniversary of what may be the greatest day in the history of Haitian sports. On June 15, 1974, at the World Cup in Munich, in the 46th minute of the first game of its first appearance in the World Cup, Haiti scored a goal against Italy.

The Haitians ended up losing, 3 to 1, as expected. They lost the next two games and …

… were eliminated, and Haiti has not qualified for the World Cup since. But they scored that goal — a goal against one of the world’s best teams and one of the world’s best goalkeepers, Dino Zoff, who, until then, had not given up a point in more than 1,000 minutes of play.

As national sports milestones go, Haiti’s is pretty modest. The joy of it still resounds today with Haitians, and the man who scored the goal — Emmanuel Sanon, known as Manno — remains a national hero. Mr. Sanon, who went on to play professionally in the United States, died in 2008. His greatest moment lives on in the memories of Haitians and on YouTube — now and forever Manno is running, taking a pass from Philippe Vorbe, outrunning a defender, zipping past Zoff, shooting and — goal! “Buuuuut!! But d’Haitiiii!” roars the announcer, the Haitian version of Goooooaaallll!

Today in Haiti, as in the rest of the world, people will be watching the World Cup. They will watch in bars and in restaurants and in tents set up in camps for displaced people. They will watch on screens in a stadium in Port-au-Prince. And as they root for other teams, many of them will pause to remember a day the rest of the world has long forgotten.

On that day, of course, reality roared back. Goliath vanquished David, the world moved on and Haiti went back to being a small country with a lot of problems. But it has that game, the memory of those fleeting minutes 36 years ago when it was on top of the world — Haiti 1, Italy 0. And nobody can take that away.

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