1APR

Four Nations Debut at World Cup; Curaçao Smallest Ever Qualifier

1 min read

22:11UTC

Cape Verde, Curaçao, Jordan and Uzbekistan are confirmed as first-time World Cup qualifiers with the completion of the 48-team field on 31 March. Curaçao, a Caribbean island with a population of approximately 160,000, is the smallest nation by population ever to reach a World Cup.

← Back to 48 Teams, Four Debutants, One Missing Champion Jump to analysis ↓

SportAssessed

Key takeaway

Curaçao's 160,000 people make them the smallest nation ever to qualify for a FIFA World Cup.

Cape Verde, Curaçao, Jordan and Uzbekistan were confirmed as World Cup debut nations on 31 March, completing the 48-team field alongside Iraq and DR Congo . Among them, Curaçao stands apart: a Caribbean island with a population of approximately 160,000, it is the smallest nation by population in World Cup history, with fewer residents than the city of Salford.

Four debutants across three confederations: Cape Verde via CAF, Curaçao via CONCACAF, Jordan and Uzbekistan via AFC. Their qualification is the most visible evidence that the expanded format changes who gets to participate, not just how many. Whether smaller nations can be competitive in June is a separate question, but their qualification is genuine and hard-won.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Four countries will be playing at a World Cup for the first time: Cape Verde (from West Africa), Curaçao (a Caribbean island), Jordan (Middle East), and Uzbekistan (Central Asia). The most remarkable is Curaçao. It is a small island with roughly 160,000 people, making it the smallest country by population ever to qualify for a World Cup. For context, that is fewer people than the city of Oxford. Their qualification is only possible because the World Cup expanded from 32 to 48 teams for this tournament.

Sources:FIFA / World Cup Wiki·FIFA / World Cup Wiki

Mentions:Cape Verde →Curaçao →Jordan →Uzbekistan →World Cup →Iraq →DR Congo →AFC →

First Reported In

Update #4 · 48 Teams, Four Debutants, One Missing Champion

FIFA / World Cup Wiki· 1 Apr 2026

Read original →

Different Perspectives

French Football Federation

The FFF called an 11:00 CEST press conference for 28 July, at its Paris headquarters, following an extraordinary executive committee meeting, at which Zinedine Zidane is expected to be presented as head coach succeeding Didier Deschamps. As of this writing no communique confirms the appointment, contract length or start date.

Morocco

Morocco is pushing for the 2030 final at its Grand Stade Hassan II in Casablanca, a planned 115,000-seat venue that would be the world's largest football stadium on completion. The venue is contested by a Spanish petition for the Santiago Bernabeu, and FIFA has fixed neither the venue nor the tournament's proposed 64-team format.

FIFA

FIFA's first tournament report, published 27 July, itemises nearly 300,000 accredited personnel, 73,700 security staff and 300,000 square metres of custom-grown turf, with no revenue or cost figure attached. As a Swiss association answering to its own Congress rather than a treasury, FIFA has followed the same operational-before-financial sequence it used after Qatar 2022.

Javier Tebas / La Liga

La Liga president Javier Tebas said on 21 July that FIFA's system is rotten from the root and that Gianni Infantino's time as president has, in his words, concluded. Tebas has no vote in FIFA's process, so days after the IOC declined jurisdiction over a separate ethics complaint, he used the only instrument he has.

Mexico City government

Head of government Clara Brugada presented a closing report on 22 July crediting the tournament with 44 billion pesos of economic activity, 2,000-plus accelerated public works and 100,000 formal jobs in June alone. The city has not published the method behind that figure, and three other Mexican bodies count the same five weeks differently.

Town of Foxborough

Foxborough answered Kraft Group's June lawsuit on 7 July with a 61-page counterclaim, calling the stadium's owners 'a collection of multibillion-dollar corporations' trying to shift its $7.8 million security bill onto taxpayers. The town says its licensing power and its billing power run through the same board, and it wants the court to award its own costs too.