Location: Curacao is a tiny island nation in the Caribbean Sea, located around 65 kms off the coast of Venezuela — the closest nation to it on the South American mainland. Curacao covers an area of 442.9 sq kms. Comparatively, Mumbai has a total area of 603.4 square kilometres.
Population: Curacao has a population of just 156,000 people, less than half the population of Iceland (350,000), who held the record for being the smallest nation to qualify for the FIFA World Cup until Wednesday.
Curacao’s star striker Gervane Kastaneer; (right) Curacao’s skipper Leandro Bacuna
Ranking: The Island nation is 82nd in the FIFA World Rankings. Nicknamed the Blue Wave due to their jersey colour, 10 years ago Curacao were ranked 150th.
Qualifying path: Curacao qualified for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in USA, Canada, and Mexico after topping two groups across two qualifying rounds. In Round One of the CONCACAF (North American federation) qualifiers, they topped Group C (Haiti, Saint Lucia, Aruba, Barbados), winning all four games, scoring 15 goals and conceding just twice. In Round Two of the CONCACAF qualifiers, they topped Group B (Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Bermuda), winning three of their six matches while drawing the other three. They scored 13 times, conceding thrice.
Star players: Striker Gervane Kastaneer has been Curacao’s talisman in attack, netting five goals in six games. He is their highest goalscorer in qualifying, and joint second-highest overall. He has received solid support from midfielder Juninho Bacuna, who has scored thrice in nine qualifying games, and his elder brother Leandro Bacuna, who has provided three assists across eight games. The latter is also the team’s captain and has previously played for Aston Villa and Cardiff City in the English Premier League.
Coach Dick Advocaat
Domestic football structure: Curacao’s non-professional first division is called the Prome Divishon and features 10 teams. However, Curacao’s international success is down to players, who ply their trade overseas — particularly in the Dutch first and second division (10 of Curacao’s current national players play in the Netherlands). Since Curacao comes under The Kingdom of the Netherlands — along with the neighbouring islands of Aruba and Bonaire — it’s perhaps unsurprising that only one member of their recent 25-man squad was born in Curacao while the rest were born in the Netherlands, but qualified to represent the Blue Wave based on their ancestry. Even their coach, Dick Advocaat is Dutch and coached the Netherlands to the 1994 FIFA World Cup quarter-finals, besides coaching six other national teams.
