'Crying long before the anthems': A week in the life of a 2026 World Cup player
What is it like to be one of the 1,200 players at this World Cup? Curacao forward Gervane Kastaneer reveals what life is really like during soccer's biggest tournament.
Curaçao are a team of record-breakers. They're the smallest nation to ever qualify for the World Cup, on both population and area. They have the tournament's oldest-ever head coach, and they began with the longest odds of winning it.
Just over half of Curaçao's 158,000 population could fit into the Houston Stadium where they played their opener against Germany . The small Dutch Caribbean island is formally part of the Netherlands, with 25 of their 26-man squad born there.
When Curaçao travelled to the United States for the World Cup, few gave them a chance of getting a goal, let alone a result.
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