The Antoine Maduro Football Stadium in Willemstad, capital of the Caribbean island of Curaçao, has seen better days. Against the faded yellow and blue walls, the artificial turf glows an unnatural green. The reigning champions, Jong Holland, are about to play Victory Boys, a top-of-the-table clash in Curaçao’s premier league. None of the clubs is professional. Training and matches take place after work, and the fixtures are not even publicly listed.
Anyone sitting in the stadium might struggle to believe the island has made football history. In November 2025, Curaçao, with a population of 156,000, drew its match against Jamaica to become the smallest country in history to qualify for the Fifa World Cup. This month, the team is in the United States to compete in the tournament, jointly hosted by Mexico and Canada. The team, known as ‘The Blue Wave’, may have lost more matches than they have won historically, but they are now taking on Germany, Ecuador and the Ivory Coast in the first round of the World Cup. How is this possible?
Jong Holland players stretch during a training session. No Curaçao-based players will represent the country at this summer’s Fifa World Cup. Photo: Mario Heller/ Panos Pictures.
Part of the story begins 4,350 miles away in the Netherlands, where most of today’s national team were born and raised. Many of their parents and grandparents moved there from Curaçao, a former Dutch colony, to find work. Fifa’s rules allow players to represent the country of their parents or grandparents – something taken advantage of by almost all of the Curaçao players heading to the World Cup. For the Curaçao national jersey, heritage is enough.
But it wasn’t always like this. Bryan Anastatia, who captains Jong Holland, had been called up to play for the national team a few times in the past, before Fifa adopted the new rule. Things are different now, he said.
Bryan Anastatia is captain of the Jong Holland team; he has played for the national team in the past. Photo: Mario Heller/ Panos Pictures.
‘If you want to turn professional, you have to leave Curaçao early,’ he went on, leaning against a goalpost in the stadium. For him, 16 years of age was already too late. Instead, he went to Cuba, studied sports science and returned to the island, becoming a primary school PE teacher. He has now been playing for Jong Holland for almost 20 years. ‘I tried to secure my future, to get a degree,’ he added. ‘I do regret not having gone to the Netherlands sometimes. I think I could have made it. But you can never know for sure.’
Seeing Curaçao qualify for the World Cup has been a bittersweet experience for him. ‘Playing in a World Cup is the greatest thing that can happen to you in football. But we can’t be quite so proud of this team. Many of the island’s great players never had the chance to be part of this success.
The brightly painted colonial-era houses built by Dutch merchants in Handelskade, an area in the island’s capital Willemstad and a Unesco World Heritage site. Photo: Mario Heller/ Panos Pictures.
‘Still, we’re in it. And I hope they get a few good results.’ The World Cup brings in money, he noted, lots of it. ‘But if we don’t channel it into our own structures – from the youth leagues upwards – then nothing will change.’
Post-colonial realities
Curaçao has been an autonomous constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands since 2010. Almost half of all Curaçaoans live in the Netherlands. Life is tough for those on the island, many of whom have or are entitled to a Dutch passport. More than 30 per cent of households live below the poverty line, while prices are on a par with those in Europe.
‘We were their colony,’ said Valdemar Marcha. ‘And informally, we still are.’ Marcha is a professor of cultural anthropology, a former director of ALM (Antillean Airlines) and author who has spent his life researching the island’s history.
The training ground of Jong Colombia, in Willemstad. The semi-professional club is in the island’s top division, its players training in the evenings and at weekends. Photo: Mario Heller/ Panos Pictures.
‘The people here are descended from West African slaves who were shipped to Curaçao, sold and sent on,’ he said. The original inhabitants, the Caquetio, were deported by the Spanish to Hispaniola, now divided into Haiti and the Dominican Republic, to work in copper and gold mines. In 1634, the Dutch took over and turned Curaçao into the centre of the Caribbean slave trade, until 1863, when slavery was abolished in the Dutch empire.
He is standing in the study of his home in Jan Thiel, a few miles outside Willemstad. This used to be a plantation with slaves and today it is one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods on the island. Behind him is a large bookshelf. ‘I wrote all of those,’ he said, pointing. He pulls out a book whose cover shows a man smiling, balancing a football on his index finger. ‘Ergilio Hato, the Black Panther,’ Marcha said. Hato was a goalkeeper and a national hero on Curaçao in the 1950s. ‘Ajax, Feyenoord, Real Madrid, they all made Hato offers. But he turned them all down to stay on the island.’
A kickabout in the coastal village of Boka Sint Michiel. Youngsters with talent move to the Netherlands if they have professional ambitions. Photo: Mario Heller/ Panos Pictures.
After his football career, Hato worked as a catering assistant at Marcha’s airline, ALM. They became friends and Marcha looked after him in his old age. Unlike Hato, today’s national team players only know Curaçao from holiday visits. ‘They have one foot in the Netherlands, where they were born and raised, where they learnt to think, feel and act,’ Marcha said. ‘The other foot is in Curaçao. In the land of their fathers and grandfathers, who passed on values, rituals, heroes and symbols to them through invisible channels.’ Tensions still linger, he said. ‘When Curaçao wins, it’s a Dutch victory. When we lose, we’re something else.’
