For the first time in history, Curacao footballers won an appearance at the World Cup, they reached that historic success by winning first place in Group B of the CONCACAF zone, playing 0-0 away to Jamaica in the last round, and in addition to Curacao’s appearance at the World Cup, they also won Panama as the winner of Group A and Haiti as the best of Group B.
Curacao arrived in Kingston to visit Jamaica with advantage point and managed to preserve the opening 0-0 during a dramatic duel in which he did not have his coach, 78-year-old Dick Advocaat, on the bench. Namely, for family reasons, Advocaat had to leave the national team and go to the Netherlands, so he transmitted his instructions to the assistants on the bench by phone.
Curacao thus ended the competition in the group with 12 points, while Jamaica collected 11 of them, so they will have to look for their passage to the WC in the Intercontinental qualifiers in March in Mexico.
With only slightly more than 150,000 inhabitants of Curacao became the smallest country to qualify for the World Cup in history. This island, located about 60 kilometers north of Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea, is officially part of the Netherlands, but has its own national team. Until 2010, the national team played under the name Netherlands Antilles, and since then as Curacao.
By placing Curacao at the World Cup, history was also written Advocaat who next summer will become the oldest coach in history to lead a national team at the biggest soccer show. Advocaat turned 78 in September this year, and the current record holder is Otto Rehhagel, who led Greece in 2010 at the age of 71 years and 10 months. For Advocaat, Curacao is the eighth different national team he has led in a long and rich career.
In group A Panama reached the first place with a safe 3-0 home victory against El Salvador, and the 1-3 defeat of Suriname in Guatemala also went in its favor. Panama thus won 12 points, while Suriname remained at nine. For Panama, this is the second placement at the World Cup, so far they only played in Russia in 2018, while Suriname will have to look for their first appearance through the Intercontinental qualifiers.
I Haiti will appear at the World Cup for the second time in history, 52 years after the first appearance in West Germany in 1974. In the last round of Group C, Haiti beat Nicaragua 2-0 at home, while in the second match of this group, Costa Rica and Honduras played 0-0. Haiti took first place with 11 points, Honduras finished second with nine, and Costa Rica third with seven.
As Honduras finished the competition with fewer goals than Suriname, it remained the weakest second-placed team, so it will not even qualify for the Intercontinental Qualifiers. Both Suriname and Honduras have nine points and a goal difference of +3, but Suriname has scored nine goals and Honduras only five.
42 WC participants are known, six places remain
Curacao, Panama and Haiti joined the three host countries as representatives of the CONCACAF region.
The participants were also known earlier other continents. Thus, Asia will be represented by Japan, Iran, Uzbekistan, South Korea, Jordan, Australia, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Oceania by New Zealand, South America by Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay, Africa by Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Ghana, Cape Verde, South Africa, Ivory Coast and Senegal, and Europe by England, France, Croatia, Portugal, Norway, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Spain and Scotland.
Those 42 national teams will find their place on group draw which will take place December 5th in the Kennedy Center in Washington, while a total of 22 national teams will fight for the remaining six places in March.
They will fight for the remaining four European places 16 selected species – Italy, Denmark, Turkey, Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic, Wales, Slovakia, Ireland, Albania, BiH, Kosovo, Sweden, Romania, North Macedonia and Northern Ireland.
Those 16 national teams will be divided into four groups that will play semi-finals and finals and the winners of each tournament will advance to the WC, and the draw will be made on Thursday.
The intercontinental qualifications, which will be held in Mexico in March, will bring the last two World Cup participants, and New Caledonia will participate as a representative of Oceania, Bolivia from South America, DR Congo from Africa, Iraq from Asia, and Jamaica and Suriname from CONCACAF.
(Hina | Photo: X)
