Curaçao men's national football team receives heroic welcome after WC qualifiers

Soccer fans celebrated at Curaçao International Airport in Willemstad on Wednesday as the country's men's soccer team arrived home after making World Cup history as the smallest nation by population ever to qualify.

The team danced and celebrated as they were surrounded by a large crowd who had gathered at the airport to see and photograph them.

Curaçao, a tiny Caribbean island country, is an autonomous territory of about 156,000 people within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

It takes the record previously held by Iceland, with a population of just over 350,000, which was the previous smallest country to reach the World Cup when it qualified for Russia 2018.

The team, heavily made up of players born and raised in the Netherlands, drew 0-0 in Jamaica, finishing top of a four-team group.

Curaçao has actively recruited from its diaspora, obtaining FIFA permission under world soccer's rules to change the national-team eligibility of players who once represented the Netherlands at youth or Under-21 levels, including five since August.

A seasoned Dutch coach, Dick Advocaat, has guided Curaçao onto the elite stage for the first expanded 48-team World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. He is set to lead his third team at a World Cup.

More celebrations are planned for later on Wednesday, when the team and thousands of fans will meet at a giant parking lot in Willenstad, where a large crowd gathered to watch the match the previous night.