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The fourth FIFA World Cup game in Philadelphia on Thursday will be the first to feature a team making its debut at the tournament — and it’s already breaking records for its small size.
This summer, Curaçao became the smallest country to compete in the World Cup by both population and land mass.
Even in the expanded format of this summer’s World Cup — expanded to 48 teams from the previous 32, with the knockout rounds now including twice the teams it previously did — not many expected the team nicknamed “the Blue Wave” to make any ripples.
But they have and now much more than the island’s population of 158,006 will be cheering them on today.
“Everybody counted us out in the beginning of the tournament and even other countries were saying it’s a shame having such a small island with B-level players playing in the World Cup,” said Muryad de Bruin, Curaçao Tourist Board’s managing director. “But as you can see, we’re entering our third game tomorrow here in Philadelphia and still we’re in the running.”
After an opening game thumping at the hands of Germany, Curaçao bounced back to earn a draw against an off-form Ecuador. The Blue Wave still has a chance to crash into the knockout rounds if it can pull off an unlikely win over Ivory Coast.
Where is Curaçao?
We’ll give you a moment to locate all 171 square miles of Curaçao on a map, off the north coast of Venezuela, right between Aruba and Bonaire. You’ll need to zoom in Google Maps.
Even hockey great Wayne Gretzky had trouble pronouncing Curaçao at the World Cup draw in December, along with a few other places. It’s not “cur-ah-COW” as the Great One put it, but rather “cyoor-uh-sow.”
Curaçao’s previous sporting claim to fame has been producing the most Major League Baseball players per capita, a sport that doesn’t have as much global reach as soccer.
“Of course, baseball gives us attention here in the U.S., but participating in the World Cup gives us worldwide attention and everybody’s talking about Curaçao,” de Bruin said.
Curaçao has only competed in FIFA tournaments solely as an island nation since 2010. Before that, it was included with the five other islands that make up the then-Netherlands Antilles. The southern Caribbean island is a constituent country of the Netherlands, and Curaçaoans also hold Dutch citizenship. Just one player on the roster was born on the island, and encouraging Dutch-born players to choose Curaçao blue over Netherlands Oranje helped them to build a squad strong enough to qualify for the World Cup.
The coach that got them to the World Cup, Dutchman Dick Advocaat, stepped down in February to “devote his full attention to his daughter, who was facing health issues,” but then returned to coach the team in May. At 78, he’s the oldest ever coach in the tournament’s history.
Despite Ivory Coast’s footballing pedigree, it has also never made it out of the group stages in its three World Cup appearances. Les Éléphants will be more familiar with Philly, having their base camp in nearby Chester and Wilmington. Plus they’ve already won a game at Philadelphia Stadium, against Ecuador, and can probably even afford to tie if Ecuador loses to Germany.
Even with there being a partial travel ban imposed on Ivorian citizens travelling into the U.S., the diaspora that has shown up is very likely to outnumber the Curaçaoan fans in the stadium.
“It was nice to have all these fans who came here for us and made the big effort to come here. They helped a lot,” Ivory Coast forward Ange-Yoan Bonny said Wednesday. “So I hope they will be [there] again tomorrow, and we hope to make it a win for them.”
De Bruin said that qualifying for the next round would be “euphoric” for the island, but even if it doesn’t pan out that way, he says everyone in Curaçao is enjoying the ride.
“Small islands, big dreams and this proves to the world, but especially our kids back home that if you put your mind and heart and you work hard towards the dream, towards a goal, you can achieve it.”
The game kicks off at 4 p.m. and, as will be starting at the same time as the other Group E game between Germany and Ecuador.
