Curaçao’s Caribbean World Cup Miracle Stuns Football’s Giants

On a fevered night in Kingston, tiny Curaçao dragged an island’s dreams across the ocean, leaning on a seventy-eight-year-old Dutch coach, two planes of singing ultras, and a scattered diaspora to crash football’s biggest party: the World Cup at last.

An Island Erupts As The Numbers Crumble

Curaçao has fewer people than many European suburbs, roughly 185,000 souls wedged between sea and sky. Yet when the final whistle shrieked in Jamaica’s National Stadium, it felt as if half the island had squeezed into that concrete bowl in spirit, roaring in blue from one corner while a sea of Jamaican yellow thundered around them.
The result, a tense draw, did more than close out a qualifying group. It rewrote a record book that once felt untouchable. Iceland’s run to the 2018 World Cup had set the benchmark for the smallest nation ever to qualify. Now Curaçao, smaller still, has nudged that fairy tale aside and written one of its own.

For most of the night, it did not feel like a story destined for a happy ending. The Reggae Boyz hit the woodwork three times. Set pieces curled into Curaçao’s box like boomerangs. Every clearance felt like a roll of the dice. In the away section, a group of blue—about two chartered planes’ worth of fans, the “ultras” as captain Leandro Bacuna affectionately called them in comments to The Athletic—sang until they were hoarse, as if their voices alone could make a difference. “We started with something like a dream to qualify for the World Cup,” Bacuna told The Athletic.

Dreams are fragile. This one needed technology to survive. Late in stoppage time, with Jamaica pushing for a goal that could change everything, referee Ivan Barton pointed to the penalty spot. The stadium erupted. Then VAR intervened. Barton went to the monitor, watched, and changed his decision. The noise gave way to stunned silence. When the whistle finally blew, there was no perfect ending—only a wave of feelings: players on their knees, staff hugging everyone nearby, phones buzzing in pockets back home. Curaçao had resisted the moment, the numbers, and the challenge of being the underdog.

The Phone Call That Changed A Federation

None of this happens without a phone call that should have gone straight to voicemail. Gilbert Martina, president of the Curaçao Football Federation, still sounds faintly disbelieving when he retells it. “I received a call from Dick,” he recalled to The Athletic. “‘I heard that Curaçao is looking for a head coach. I’m available.'” Martina had been swinging for the fences and striking out. He had sounded out Bert van Marwijk, the Dutch coach who took the Netherlands to the 2010 World Cup final. Van Marwijk, he said, was polite but firm: retirement meant retirement. Louis van Gaal, never one to sugarcoat, offered another sort of reality check. “‘If I go to coach again, it is going to be with the country that can become world champions,'” Martina remembered Van Gaal telling him, as he recounted to The Athletic.

Advocaat, by contrast, offered something more modest and yet, for Curaçao, just as ambitious: his name, his experience, his willingness to turn a small project into his next adventure. Martina, ever the pragmatist, made a simple request. “‘Can I use your name to acquire sponsors? Because a big name attracts sponsors… it gives hope.'” The answer—yes—changed the project’s financial oxygen. Sponsors listened. Budgets loosened. Flights, camps, and preparation stopped being improvised miracles and started looking like a plan.

Advocaat’s résumé reads like a tour through modern football history: the Netherlands at USA ’94, South Korea, Russia, major clubs across Europe. In Jamaica, he was thousands of miles away, in the Netherlands with his ill wife, plugged into the touchline through assistant Dean Gorré and a trusted staff. After qualification was sealed, he sent a message that sounded equal parts veteran exhale and wide-eyed newcomer: “‘Congrats. Incredible, fantastic, so good! What an adventure,'” as reported by The Athletic.

His influence, players say, has gone far beyond tactics. “‘Everyone knows Dick, he is a good coach,'” midfielder Juninho Bacuna told The Athletic. “‘It changed a lot outside the pitch. Preparations, more professionalism. And on the pitch, it’s more like, “We need to get a result… if we don’t win, make sure you don’t lose.”'” That simple mantra—win if you can, don’t lose if you can’t—became the spine of the campaign.

Dutch Roots, Caribbean Heartbeat

Curaçao’s story is not a lightning bolt that came from nowhere. It is the product of two decades of slow, unglamorous work—and of a complicated relationship with the Netherlands.

The island is a constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands; its language, law, and streets carry that imprint. Its football, too. Only one member of the current qualifying squad, winger Tahith Chong, was born on the island. The rest—the Bacuna brothers, Kenji Gorré, and others—were born in the Netherlands, sons and grandsons of Curaçaoan families who left but never quite let go. “We could pick players from the Netherlands because we are a Dutch Caribbean island…” Leandro Bacuna explained to The Athletic.

The seeds were planted back in 2004. Martina credits former federation president Jean Francisco with recognizing a simple truth: there would never be enough professional-level talent if Curaçao relied solely on those born on the island. The diaspora had to be part of the team. That meant research, phone calls, spreadsheets, and a constant act of persuasion. The result is a squad that plays with Dutch-taught spacing and patterns but carries a distinctly Caribbean pulse. “‘We have one big family,'” Juninho Bacuna said to The Athletic.
In that tangled web of passports and phone calls lies a quiet rebuke to football’s old assumptions about size and power.

Ninety Minutes Of Nerve, A Future Wide Open

For all the years of preparation, the decisive night in Kingston looked, at times, like chaos. Curaçao reached it by being brutally efficient: sweeping past Haiti, Saint Lucia, Aruba, and Barbados; grinding out two draws with Trinidad & Tobago; thumping Bermuda home and away—including a 7–0 drubbing on the road—before beating Jamaica in Willemstad and holding on for dear life in the return.

The finale was not a coaching manual. It was a test of nerve. Jamaica poured forward, chasing the win they needed. Curaçao snapped out on counters, almost forcing Andre Blake into a self-inflicted disaster before the goalkeeper redeemed himself with a scattering of crucial saves.

On the opposite bench, the human cost was hard to miss. At full time, Jamaica coach Steve McClaren lingered in his seat, head bowed. In the press room, he resigned, even with a path still open through the intercontinental playoffs next March. For Curaçao, the draw meant direct qualification.

“In qualification, every game is a final,” Martina told The Athletic. “You need a coach who can prepare a team to play based on results… Dick Advocaat is a master in doing that.” The captain had seen it coming, or convinced himself he had to. “I had a dream about it… Two or three weeks ago,'” Leandro Bacuna said. “‘I want it done and dusted.” Now Curaçao is here. It is the smallest nation ever to qualify for the World Cup. This Caribbean team is made from threads of diaspora, local pride, and the determined spirit of a coach in his seventies, watching from thousands of miles away. It serves as a reminder that in football, size is not destiny; it is only a starting point.

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