Ar’jany Martha, Rotherham winger, and Tahith Chong, Sheffield United midfielder, have advanced to the World Cup next summer with their country Curacao.
The Caribbean Island has become the smallest country to ever advance to the tournament, with a population of 156,000.
Martha, a former Netherlands under-15, under-16, under-19, showed his excitement for next summer, representing his parents’ birthplace.
“Both my parents are from Curacao. Since I was three, I went on vacation there to visit family with my parents. I got to know everybody.
“I had a couple of conversations with my agent and my family and I decided to go with Curacao.”
The former Ajax Amsterdam midfielder said it was his dream to qualify for the biggest football tournament in the world: “It’s a great feeling. It’s every boy’s dream to qualify for a World Cup and go to play there. I feel great”
Meanwhile, Tahith Chong only recently made his first cap for the Curacao national team, scoring two goals and adding one assist in that game.
The former Manchester United midfielder is expected by many to be the leading man for the tiny island nation in the biggest stage of world football.
Sheffield United manager, Chris Wilder, says Tahith Chong’s involvement in the world cup is a “fantastic achievement” and said that this will only improve his play.
In the press conference before the Stoke City match, Wilder said this opportunity will help develop his “fabulous future” further, for both his club and for country.
Curacao’s fate drawn today
The World Cup 2026 draw set to take place on Friday at 5pm GMT in Washington DC (12:00 local time). The draw for the playoffs will also take place this evening, where Wales, Northern Island and the Republic of Island with hopes to qualify too.
Both Martha and Chong will definitely hope to see where their nations will land in the group stage.
With 48 teams placed into four pots of twelve, it has created debate about the quality of the game.
Arsene Wenger, former Arsenal manager and FIFAs Chief of Global Football Development, said he does not believe that the expansion will reduce the quality of the game and the quality will come out in the four knock out games.
Ar’jany Martha is confident in Curacao’s prospect in the tournament, and he looks forward to seeing some of old friends. He said: “I hope we play against the Netherlands. That would be crazy because we’ve got a lot of Dutch players who played in the Netherlands and we want to show them how good we are and what a team we are.”
“We like fighting every single game and we’re like one big family. You can see it in the results.”
