00:00You know it's not every day that a tiny island nation qualifies for football's
00:05biggest tournament. You know me, I need to jump on a plane and get there ASAP to
00:11check it out for myself. Hello, Nick Z here in the beautiful island nation of
00:17CuraƧao, a tiny island of just 150,000 people just off the coast of Venezuela.
00:22They've done something no one thought would be possible. They qualified for the
00:26World Cup for the very first time, becoming the smallest nation ever to
00:30reach the tournament. Let's see how they did it.
00:35So CuraƧao, or as Wayne Gretzky called it at the FIFA World Cup drawing,
00:40CuraƧao. Anyways, CuraƧao is a former Dutch colony, part of the Kingdom of the
00:46Netherlands. That's why you see all this Dutch architecture everywhere you look
00:50here. Families here for decades have gone to the Netherlands for work, for school,
00:54opportunity in general. So what you have with the squad is something really, really
00:58unique. The entire team was born and raised and developed in the Netherlands, but
01:04they have these CuraƧao and diaspora Caribbean roots developed in Europe
01:09instead of local academies here on the island. And that's because the
01:14infrastructure on the island when it comes to developing domestic talent just
01:18isn't there. The domestic league in CuraƧao is semi-pro at best and they have
01:22just one stadium on the island. But they made it happen.
01:262026 was a World Cup destined for CuraƧao. This expanded 48-team World Cup had six
01:34spots open for CONCACAF. USA, Mexico, Canada, the usual Giants, qualified
01:40automatically as hosts of the tournament. Then you combine that with the fact that,
01:44you know, Costa Rica, Honduras, these usual Central American Giants, they just didn't
01:50show up in the qualifiers, leaving the door open for smaller squads to show up. And guess
01:55what? CuraƧao did.
01:56They did amazing in the qualifiers, winning their first round of matches, all four of
02:01them. Their biggest opponent, Jamaica, beat them 2-0 at home and then drew 0-0 in Kingston
02:08to clinch their spot in the World Cup.
02:18And it has been a party ever since. You won't find this squad without their Bluetooth speaker
02:26nearby. CuraƧao's know how to have a good time. And this squad is heading into this World
02:31Cup with confidence and all-around good vibes. So head coach for CuraƧao is 78-year-old Dick
02:40Advocat. He's coached the Netherlands. He's coached Russia, Sunderland. He even played in the North
02:50American Soccer League way back in the 1970s for the Chicago Sting. He was a midfielder. He heads
02:56into this World Cup as the oldest coach ever in the tournament. CuraƧao are in a really,
03:01really tough group. Thanks, Wayne Gretzky.
03:04Caraco.
03:05But no matter what happens from here on out, they get the opportunity to do something they've
03:09never done before. And that's prove to the world who CuraƧao is as a footballing nation.
03:14We are small. We're a small country, but we're still great. And there's nothing that's going
03:17to stop us.
Comments