The smallest nation ever to qualify for the World Cup didn’t do it alone

Curaçao will make its World Cup debut this month as the smallest nation ever to qualify for the tournament, thanks to its connection to the Netherlands.

Before Gilbert Martina took the job as president of Curaçao’s soccer federation in 2023, he asked his wife for her opinion.

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“She said, ‘Hell, no, you’re not going to do that,’” Martina said.

At the time, Martina already had one demanding job as the chief executive of a medical center on the Caribbean island. The soccer job would be no less tricky. Curaçao, a nation of 156,000 located 40 miles off Venezuela, had never qualified its national team, the Blue Wave, for the World Cup. Martina was well aware of the challenges — for two decades, he’d helped the federation raise money for World Cup qualification attempts that all fell short.