Growing up in the Netherlands, Jurgen Locadia envisioned himself wearing those iconically vibrant orange jerseys at a World Cup. He played for the country’s youth national squads, was selected for the senior team a few times and started his professional career with Dutch clubs.
So when peers tried to enlist him to play for Curaçao, a tiny island nation off the coast of Venezuela, he initially brushed them off.
“I always had the hope to play for the Dutch squad,” Locadia, a forward for USL Championship side Miami FC, told me recently.
Need an underdog team to root for at the World Cup? Curaçao may be your squad. (Photo by Alan Harvey/SNS Group via Getty Images)
But his friend and current Miami FC teammate, Eloy Room — who was also from the Netherlands and had already joined the Curaçao national team — was persistent. He was trying to help build something in Curaçao. Locadia remembers having conversations with Room four years ago while he was still attached to the Oranje. Room was trying to sell Locadia on the idea of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.
“I was like, ‘C’mon man, it’s not realistic,’” Locadia said he told Room. “But he was convinced. And that energy rubs off when you believe in something. And he believed in it. I was skeptical, but looking back, it’s ironic how life works out.”
Call it the college transfer portal meets the World Cup. Countries use recruiting-style pitches on dual-national players to bolster their chances of qualifying for the world’s biggest tournament.
The approach has also paid off for more established countries, such as Morocco, which reached the semifinals of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and became the first African nation to do so. Senegal, Ivory Coast and Egypt are other countries that followed similar paths by recruiting players who previously represented other nations at youth levels.
Some teams got creative with their methods. Cape Verde, also making its inaugural World Cup appearance this summer, initially wooed Irish-born defender Roberto “Pico” Lopes via a LinkedIn message.
Smaller than those aforementioned countries, Curaçao’s interpersonal approach toward its program-building blueprint has now paid dividends. The strategy worked, and Curaçao will make its World Cup debut this summer as the smallest nation ever to qualify for the tournament.
“I don’t think we realize the impact right now,” said Locadia, who ultimately committed to the Blue Wave in 2023. “Personally, I still can’t comprehend that we qualified. I think once we’re all together at our [base camp in Boca Raton, Florida], then the World Cup really starts, but for now, it’s still hard to understand that we accomplished such a big thing.”
The Caribbean island of Curaçao was formerly a regional hub of the Dutch Atlantic slave trade, and many Curaçaoans grew up in or at some point moved to the Netherlands due to colonial and political ties. In 2010, Curaçao became an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands following the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles.
The population of Curaçao is around 158,000 and has a total land mass of 171 square miles — that’s seven times smaller than Rhode Island. Soccer and baseball are among the nation’s most popular sports, though locals have cheered for Brazil or Argentina during past World Cups since their country had never qualified.
That was, however, until last November when Curaçao shocked the world, securing a berth to the 2026 tournament after a 0-0 draw against Jamaica in Kingston. The previous record for the smallest World Cup country was Iceland, which had a population of 350,000 when it reached the 2018 tournament in Russia.
So, how did this unlikely contender reach soccer’s biggest stage?
“It was my project,” former Curaçao national team manager Remko Bicentini told me.
Bicentini coached the Netherlands Antilles from 2009-10 after serving as an assistant in 2008, then worked as Curaçao’s assistant from 2011-16 before being named head coach from 2016-20 and again from 2022-23. He was one of the early architects who developed a plan to attract professional players with Curaçaoan roots to represent their homeland. He gave most of the players on Curaçao’s 2026 World Cup roster their first international appearance.
Bicentini — whose father, Moises, was among the earliest Curaçaoans to play professional soccer in the Netherlands in the late 1950s — used several methods to identify players for the national team. He said he communicated with coaches around the world from 2015-23 and contacted various consulates, which helped him locate players with Curaçaoan heritage.
“I looked all over the world for players who can play for Curaçao, if they have a parent or grandparent who was born in Curaçao,” Bicentini told me. “I looked for many, many, many years, and I found a lot of players.”
Eloy Room, Curaçao’s longtime goalkeeper. (Photo by Sebastian Frej/Getty Images)
Under the guidance of veteran Dutch manager Dick Advocaat — who has coached numerous teams in the Netherlands and abroad — Curaçao went unbeaten in its 10-match World Cup qualifying campaign. It culminated in a draw against Jamaica on Nov. 18. 2025.
“It means everything,” Room said of clinching a spot in the World Cup. “This was the main reason I started to play for Curaçao because we had that dream. Back then, we were told, ‘It’s going to be a long road. It’s going to be a bumpy road.’ But I really believed we could reach the World Cup. I don’t know what it was, but I had this feeling inside of me that we can make it with Curaçao.
“It’s an unbelievable feeling that you started something 10 years ago, and at the end you make it, you know? A lot of people said, ‘Nah, you’re never going to make it. It’s too difficult.’ We proved we can, so that makes it extra special.”
Curaçao players celebrating after upsetting Jamaica and qualifying for the World Cup. (Photo by Ricardo MAKYN / AFP)
