{"text":[[{"start":8.7,"text":"When the Caribbean island of Curaçao became the smallest nation ever to qualify for a World Cup, giant celebrations broke out. The players, who had achieved a heroic 0-0 draw in Jamaica, were due to land back in Curaçao in late afternoon. But by noon, many of the island’s 156,000 inhabitants were lining the roads, recalls national football federation president Gilbert Martina. His personal response: “Tears, tears, tears of joy.” "}],[{"start":39.05,"text":"“Cinderella story,” he murmurs. But Curaçao is the Cinderella of Cinderellas. Football isn’t even the island’s main sport. There are only 28 clubs with men’s teams, Martina says, and the local league was recently suspended for two-and-a-half years over what he calls “conflicts”. Veteran goalkeeper Eloy Room didn’t have a club when he shut out Jamaica. The coach, Dick Advocaat, quit before the game to be with his ill daughter, but suddenly returned last week, to become the oldest manager in World Cup history. How did Curaçao do it?"}],[{"start":69.9,"text":"For about 150 years until 1815, the island off the coast of Venezuela was the centre of the Dutch slave trade. Later it joined the Netherlands Antilles. In 2010 it became an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, though still not an independent state. When the island began fielding a national team in 2011, the aim was to recruit Dutch pros with Curaçao roots. But the team couldn’t afford to play many games, because the federation struggled to fund travel. "}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":101.45,"text":"Midfielder Leandro Bacuna was persuaded to don the blue shirt in 2016 by the island’s coach at the time, Patrick Kluivert, a great Dutch centre-forward whose mum was from Curaçao. Bacuna, now the captain, recalls, “Back then there weren’t many top players.” He and Room tried to convince fellow diaspora footballers in the Dutch league to enlist with the ancestral homeland. Room adds a caveat: “I’d always tell players, ‘I won’t get on my knees to persuade anyone. You have to want to play for Curaçao. You have to have a heart to play for the island.’” The best diaspora players, like Arsenal’s Jurriën Timber, his twin brother Quinten of Olympique Marseille and Chelsea’s Jorrel Hato, chose the Netherlands instead. "}],[{"start":144.45,"text":"The island had a glorious sporting tradition — in baseball. Per capita, it produces more players for the US’s major leagues than any other country, says Martina. Curaçao’s great sporting role model wasn’t Kluivert but his almost exact contemporary Andruw Jones, who in 1996, aged just 19, hit a home run in his first at-bat in the World Series with the Atlanta Braves. Then he homered in his second at-bat. “The Curaçao Kid” has just been elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame. "}],[{"start":175.6,"text":"During previous football World Cups, islanders decorated their homes in the colours of Brazil, Argentina or the Netherlands. But Curaçao’s football finally turned around in 2023. With the league still suspended, desperate local clubs asked Martina to become the federation’s president. “I discussed it with ‘the queen’ at home,” he chuckles. “At first she said, ‘Absolutely not’, because I was then still CEO of the Curaçao Medical Center. But I intuitively felt that Curaçao would qualify and we had to do everything to achieve that.” First he persuaded his wife, and then he persuaded the tourism group Corendon to sponsor the federation. Together they decided that the way to attract more sponsors and good players was to hire a “big name” coach."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":"

• A woman stands on a residential street, wearing a blue T-shirt, with palm trees and houses in the background.
• Valdemar Marcha sits on a beige sofa in a living room with a large model aeroplane and a bouquet of flowers on the coffee table.

"}],[{"start":220.8,"text":"The name ended up being the diminutive Dutchman Dick Advocaat, “The Little General”, 78-year-old former manager of Netherlands, Russia, Iraq and Glasgow Rangers. But Martina still teases Advocaat: “You weren’t first choice.” Martina initially asked some other Dutch managers. Louis van Gaal told him, “A great honour, but if I become a national coach again, it’ll be with a country with which I can win the World Cup.” Fred Rutten accepted the job, before withdrawing. Finally, Advocaat’s agent called to offer his man."}],[{"start":255.4,"text":"Advocaat supercharged Curaçao’s player recruitment. Room says, “I think if you get a call from Dick Advocaat, you pick up.” The coach showed candidates a plausible path to the World Cup. The tournament had been expanded to 48 teams, and qualifying was less competitive than usual in the North and Central American zone since the US, Canada and Mexico qualified automatically as hosts. Bacuna recalls the players saying even before qualifiers began: “It’s destined for us.” The buzz among diaspora footballers grew. Riechedly Bazoer, who had previously won six Dutch caps, offered his services unsolicited. Curaçao even recruited Jordi Paulina of mighty Borussia Dortmund — well, OK, Dortmund’s under-23 team. The Germans had signed him a year earlier from a Dutch amateur club after he posted a video of his highlights on TikTok. On Paulina’s Curaçao debut, a qualifier against Bermuda, he scored twice."}],[{"start":312.15,"text":"The newcomers joined a squad that its members unanimously describe as a family. “You are given love,” says Bacuna. The squad prays together before every training session and game, says Martina, “to ask for strength, for energy. All noses pointing the same way.” He clarifies: “It’s not a Christian prayer. It’s just a prayer.”"}],[{"start":333.09999999999997,"text":"As in a family, the players share origins: the entire side that overcame Jamaica was born in the Netherlands, and raised with an attachment to Curaçao. Martina comments: “They come on holiday here. At Christmas, in summer, you see a legion of players visiting the island. That says something about your feeling about your roots.”"}],[{"start":352.45,"text":"Bacuna says Advocaat asked them for greater canniness: “You have Dutch schooling, you know how to play, but play more for results.” It worked. Heading into the final qualifier in Jamaica, they needed only a draw to qualify."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":"

• Fans sit in stadium seats clapping and cheering, with one woman raising a yellow horn during the match.
• Children play barefoot football on a cracked outdoor court, with a tree and worn concrete walls in the background.

"}],[{"start":366,"text":"Just before the game, they lost Advocaat, who flew back to the Netherlands to be with his ill daughter. Room says, “We all decided together: we wanted to do it for Dick.”"}],[{"start":377.6,"text":"Admittedly, they got lucky: Jamaica hit the woodwork three times, and were awarded a penalty in injury time before the Video Assistant Referee overruled it. “Not good for my heart,” says Corendon’s founder Atilay Uslu. But with Advocaat cheering them on in front of his TV, Curaçao made the World Cup. He called the qualification “the craziest thing I’ve ever achieved as a coach”."}],[{"start":401.20000000000005,"text":"He initially decided to miss the World Cup. He would stay home with his daughter, while keeping himself busy as adviser to Feyenoord Rotterdam’s coach, Robin van Persie. Advocaat persuaded Curaçao to recruit as his successor the coach who had previously said yes and then no, Rutten. On a friendly tour of Australia in March, Rutten’s team lost 2-0 to China (admittedly facing a population disadvantage of nearly 10,000 to 1) and 5-1 to Australia. "}],[{"start":429.50000000000006,"text":"Rutten told me he understood that players needed to get used to him: “When my daughter first got a relationship with some guy, I as a father wondered, ‘What’s coming in here?’ Well, I think you can make that comparison a bit.” He himself was thrilled to be there: “Who could have imagined, when I went into the coaching profession, that Fred Rutten would be at a World Cup?” "}],[{"start":451.3500000000001,"text":"But the defeats to China and Australia proved fatal. Uslu, who started his career selling shawarmas in the Dutch town of Haarlem before founding Curaçao’s sponsor Corendon, says: “We saw that no chemistry was arising between footballers and coach. We worried we would be the joke of the World Cup.” Advocaat’s daughter’s condition had improved. The players and Corendon put pressure on Martina to reappoint him. At first, Martina said no. “We weren’t happy about that,” admits Uslu. Then suddenly, on May 11, a month before the tournament began, Rutten stepped down."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":"

• Bryan, captain of CRSKV Jong Holland, stands on a football field looking directly at the camera.
• Patrick Kluivert stands with a fan while surrounded by a crowd at a football stadium.

"}],[{"start":487.75000000000006,"text":"On June 14, Advocaat’s men kick off their adventure against the Netherlands’ eternal rival, four-time world champion Germany. Their next first-round opponents are Ecuador and Ivory Coast. The data provider Opta puts Curaçao’s chances of winning the trophy at precisely 0 per cent (compared with, say, 0.1 per cent for Uzbekistan). Several Curaçao players don’t even play regularly for their clubs. "}],[{"start":512.5500000000001,"text":"At least they now have clubs. After qualification, Room and his fellow unemployed colleague, striker Jurgen Locadia, joined Miami FC (the city’s second club, not Leo Messi’s Inter Miami). Others hope to upgrade their status by being spotted at the tournament. Bacuna, who at 34 plays for tiny Iğdır FK in Turkey, says: “There will be lots of eyes. If it’s destined for you, it’s destined for you.” "}],[{"start":537.6500000000001,"text":"What would count as success at the World Cup? The federation’s stated goal is to reach the second round. But days before Rutten was ousted, he told me that football is a funny game: “Leicester were once champions of England. Beforehand you’d say: that can’t happen.” "}],[{"start":554.9000000000001,"text":"Find out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend Magazine on X and FT Weekend on Instagram"}],[{"start":570,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1779537783_5679.mp3"}