The Caribbean island of Curaçao has made football history, after being recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the smallest country by population to qualify for the World Cup finals.
Curaçao began its first participation in the 2026 World Cup finals with a heavy defeat against its German counterpart (1-7), but despite the harsh result against one of the giants of world football, the mere presence of Curaçao in the World Cup is an exceptional success story, considering the limited resources and population of no more than 156,000 people.
The official certificate was handed over to the president of its football federation, Gilbert Martina, and the official certificate handover ceremony took place in Houston, USA.
Curaçao had a population of only 156,115 when it qualified for the World Cup, much less than the previous record held by Iceland, which had a population of about 350,000 when it qualified for the 2018 World Cup.
