SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Since 2012, the women’s national soccer team from Haiti has spent six months a year training near the regional airport here, down a country road and just across the railroad tracks, mostly unnoticed, wholly unlikely as a regional power.

Each woman on the team has a story of despair about the 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere: a house folded like a wallet. A brother’s shattered leg. An aunt crushed by the door of a church. An uncle lost in a building and never found.

Each player, too, has a story of resilience and perseverance. No Caribbean nation has ever qualified for the Women’s World Cup. Now Haiti, of all countries, is on the cusp of reaching the expanded 2015 tournament, to be played next summer in Canada.

It is a quest of great ambition and meager resources. There is no salary for the players. None for the Polish-American coach and his assistants. Players live eight or nine to an apartment. Even the captain sleeps on a thin mattress in the living room.