标签： South America

Nestled in the heart of the Caribbean, the tiny sun-drenched island of Curacao has long been known globally for its namesake orange liqueur and blend of Dutch colonial heritage and vibrant local culture. But this June, the small island nation is set to step onto the world’s biggest sporting stage and write a new chapter of football history that will far outlast its reputation as a vacation destination.

With a total land area smaller than the Isle of Man and a population of just 158,000 — fewer people than live in 40 cities and towns across the United Kingdom — Curacao is not even a fully sovereign state, remaining an autonomous constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Yet it has defied all odds to qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, becoming the smallest nation ever by both size and population to reach the sport’s premier tournament.

This milestone achievement has sparked unprecedented national celebration across the island. “It brings so much joy and pride to the island that you can’t describe it. The whole island is turning blue,” Gilbert Martina, president of the Curacao Football Federation (FFK), told BBC Sport ahead of Curacao’s World Cup debut against four-time champions Germany in Houston. Thousands of passionate “Blue Wave” fans are expected to travel to Texas for the opening match, with fans booking last-minute charter flights directly from the Caribbean island to see their team make its first World Cup appearance.

Unlike most national squads, only one member of Curacao’s 26-player roster — winger Tahith Chong — was actually born on the island. The remaining 25 players were born and raised in the mainland Netherlands, part of the large Curacaoan diaspora that numbers roughly the same as the island’s total population. Eighteen of these squad members previously represented the Netherlands at youth international level, with two — defender Joshua Brenet and midfielder Riechedly Bazoer — even earning senior caps for the Dutch senior team before switching their allegiances to Curacao.

The shift toward integrating diaspora talent began more than a decade ago, when the federation hired high-profile Dutch manager Patrick Kluivert in 2015. The first of the new wave of diaspora players, Miami FC goalkeeper Eloy Room, made his international debut for Curacao that same year, with current captain Leandro Bacuna — a former midfielder for Aston Villa and Cardiff City — following in 2016. A massive influx of new talent joined the squad after 2023, with 15 first debuts in the past three years, including Chong, who switched from Dutch under-21 duty to Curacao in 2025.

Critics have occasionally raised questions about the lack of native-born players in the squad, but the arrangement is widely accepted on the island, where cross-Atlantic family and cultural ties to the Netherlands are deeply ingrained. “We’re very used to our diaspora also being outside the island. So that’s not necessarily a factor in how we would identify ourselves. Even if a player is not born here, they feel an extreme connection and identify as Curacaoan,” explained Boudino de Jong, a Curacao native and co-founder of Profound, the FFK’s digital partner.

For the players themselves, the connection to the island runs deep through family heritage. Juninho Bacuna, Leandro’s younger brother and a former midfielder for Huddersfield Town and Rangers, chose to represent Curacao for the chance to play alongside his brother and honor his parents, who were both born on the island. “When we were kids we dreamed of playing together in one team on one pitch. That’s why I decided early on to play for Curacao so I could be with him, make my parents proud, make the island proud,” the 28-year-old said.

Alongside its historic player cohort, Curacao brings another record to this World Cup: 78-year-old manager Dick Advocaat will become the oldest head coach to ever lead a team at the tournament. Advocaat, a legendary Dutch football manager, first took charge of Curacao in 2024 and is widely credited with building the discipline and mentality that drove the team’s unbeaten qualifying run. He stepped aside temporarily in February 2025 to care for his ill daughter, but returned to the role last month after his family situation improved, with players and sponsors publicly advocating for his comeback.

Advocaat’s influence transformed the team’s approach, Martina said: “He prepared the mindset and the mentality that the team has to learn to play for results instead of playing for fun.” That focus paid off during qualifying for the expanded 48-team 2026 World Cup, where Curacao finished the Concacaf qualifying process unbeaten, picking up seven wins and three draws to secure their spot. Even when Advocaat missed the decisive qualification draw against Jamaica for family reasons — with assistant Dean Gorre stepping in to lead the side — the team held on to secure the point they needed. For Gorre, the moment was made even more special by the fact that his son, Kenji Gorre, a former Swansea City winger, is a member of the Curacao squad. “To see him lead the biggest game of Curacao’s history, to live that with him and to actually be on the field while he is the coach is a unique situation,” Kenji Gorre said.

Drawn into a challenging Group E alongside Germany, Ecuador and Ivory Coast, Curacao is widely considered the underdog heading into their opening match. But captain Leandro Bacuna says the team has no intention of just making up the numbers. “People look at us always having fun and dancing. We are all together. But as soon as the referee blows the whistle we have one thing on our mind — getting a result,” he said. His brother Juninho echoed that fighting spirit, noting that even a potential knockout stage matchup against the Netherlands would bring out the very best from the side: “If that happens, I’m giving, not 100, not 200, I will give 1000% more than I will give ever. We just want to show the world that we are a small island but we have got a big heart, belief and a lot of talent.”

Off the pitch, Curacao’s qualification is already being felt across the island. The entire nation shut down to celebrate the decisive qualification draw, with traffic stopping across the island as fans poured into the streets to celebrate. Martina says the moment has been transformative for national pride, with blue flags and decorations covering everything from buildings to cars. Beyond celebration, the team’s World Cup run is expected to drive a major boost to tourism and foreign investment, putting the small Caribbean island on the global map in a new way.

For the players and fans alike, this is more than just a football tournament — it is a story of defying impossible odds. “This is a story of the impossible being possible. This is a story of hope,” Kenji Gorre said. “This will be a story that will go on for generations in the Gorre family, as well as the world of Curacao.” Martina says the team has set a modest but ambitious goal: reaching the knockout stage as one of the best third-placed teams in the new expanded format. Regardless of their results, Curacao has already made history — and proven that size is no barrier to reaching the world’s biggest sporting stage.

For 28 long years, Scotland’s football fans had been locked out of the World Cup, forced to watch from the sidelines as the world’s biggest football tournament rolled on without them. So when thousands of members of the famous Tartan Army found themselves stuck in crippling traffic gridlock on the highway to Foxborough’s Boston Stadium ahead of their opening 2026 World Cup group match against Haiti, there was not a hint of frustration – only unbridled joy.

Four hours before kickoff, a line of yellow school buses carrying jubilant Scottish supporters crawled along Interstate 95 at just one mile per hour. Fans leaned out of every window, belting out traditional anthems, waving blue and white flags, and turning the slow-moving convoy into an impromptu street party, completely unaware of the nail-biting tension that would unfold on the pitch hours later. The anticipation across the entire city of Boston was tangible; clusters of Scotland fans packed every street corner, turning the area into a sea of tartan that felt less like a visiting crowd and more than a joyful invasion.

When the Scottish team walked out onto the pitch just before 9 p.m. local time, the Boston Stadium erupted into a cacophony of noise and color. Giant screens behind each goal captured every raw emotion on the stands, from tearful grins to thunderous cheers as the crowd sang *Flower of Scotland* with a ferocity that manager Steve Clarke would later note felt even more powerful on foreign soil than it does at Hampden Park. For a side that had waited a generation to return to the World Cup finals, the moment was electric – a raw, authentic rebuke to the commercialism and greed that plagues modern global football.

The match got off to a promising start for Scotland, but the side quickly faded, letting Haiti, ranked 83rd in the world, grow into the contest. The Caribbean side grew bolder as the half wore on, creating more clear chances than the heavily favored Scots, even if they failed to convert their opportunities. With less than 30 minutes on the clock, a small section of the Tartan Army began chanting for Aston Villa midfielder John McGinn, urging their talisman to deliver a moment of magic. Two minutes later, he answered the call.

McGinn’s winning goal was far from a technical masterpiece: the scruffy strike took two deflections before looping into the Haitian net, but that detail meant nothing to the jubilant crowd. It was Scotland’s first goal at a World Cup finals in a generation, and it put Clarke’s side 1-0 up, lifting their total of all-time World Cup finals wins from four to five. Rare moments like this do not need to be pretty to be perfect.

Instead of pushing on to extend their lead after the break, Scotland retreated into a defensive shell, unable to impose their game on a hungry Haiti side. For the final 20 minutes, the Scots hung on desperately, their defense littered with errors and constantly pinned deep inside their own half. With 12 minutes left on the clock, the Tartan Army dug into their songbook for a dry, gallows-humored rendition of “No Scotland No Party” – a ironic tweak on their favorite anthem, as the entire crowd held its breath through every attacking Haiti thrust. The tension was so thick you could cut it: with six minutes remaining, Haiti striker Frantzdy Pierrot rose above center-back Grant Hanley and sent a header inches wide of the post, sending heart rates soaring across the Scottish section.

A late equalizer would not just have stolen a point for Haiti – it would have gutted Scotland’s hopes of progressing out of the group stage, a historic first for the nation. If they could not beat Haiti, there seemed little hope of taking points from heavyweights Brazil or Morocco in their remaining group matches. Pierrot had another golden chance late on and missed again, while panicked Scottish defenders cleared lines frantically rather than playing the composed football they are capable of.

What was supposed to be a relatively comfortable return to the World Cup stage for Scotland turned into a 90-minute rollercoaster of nerves, an exhausting contest that left both players and fans drained. But at the final whistle, the scoreboard still read 1-0, and the 36-year wait for a World Cup finals win was over.

Post-match reactions summed up the conflicting mood in the camp: three points on the board, but plenty of work to do. McGinn, who spoke after the game beaming with pride, admitted the side has higher gears that they did not show on the night, a sentiment echoed by Clarke, who described the match as a must-win that his side had grinded out. Goalkeeper Angus Gunn acknowledged that the performance was far from perfect, but stressed that a World Cup win is still a win. Young winger Ben Gannon-Doak was Scotland’s stand-out player, his constant running causing Haiti problems all evening, while key stars like Billy Gilmour, Scott McTominay (who hit the post late on) and even McGinn failed to exert their usual control over the match outside of the winning goal.

On Monday morning, the squad will return to their Charlotte base tired but victorious, with six days to iron out their mistakes before their second group match against Morocco back in Boston. The win sparked wild celebrations among the Tartan Army, but most supporters admitted the mood was more relief than unfiltered joy. Still, after waiting 28 years just to be back at the World Cup, even the most nail-biting win is enough. Thousands of fans are already planning to return for the Morocco match, ready for another night of anxiety and pressure – and adamant there is nowhere else they would rather be.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – In a historic World Cup Group C clash at Gillette Stadium on Saturday, Scotland claimed a long-awaited 1-0 victory over Haiti, courtesy of a deflected first-half goal from Aston Villa midfielder John McGinn that capped off a dramatic opening to the nation’s first World Cup tournament in 25 years.

McGinn’s decisive strike arrived in the 28th minute, sparked by a close-range attempt from Scotland striker Che Adams that goalkeeper Johny Placide could only parry into open space inside the penalty area. Pouncing on the loose ball from 13 yards out, McGinn fired a low effort that ricocheted off a Haitian defender, wrong-footing Placide and bouncing into the back of the net. The goal broke a decades-long drought for Scotland, which had not notched a World Cup win since a 2-1 victory over Sweden at the 1990 tournament, and was making its first appearance at the global competition since 1998.

The result was all the more sweeter for Scotland after Group C favorites Brazil and Morocco played to a 1-1 draw earlier the same day, leaving Steve Clarke’s side sitting atop the early group standings with three points from their opening fixture.

Scotland nearly doubled their lead 11 minutes before McGinn’s goal, when captain Scott McTominay found space outside the box and unleashed a curling effort that clipped the top of the crossbar, bouncing just over the frame of the goal to deny the Manchester United star an opening goal.

Haiti, which is only making its second World Cup appearance in history following their debut at the 1974 tournament in West Germany, pushed hard for an equalizer in the second half and came close to leveling the score twice. In the 74th minute, winger Ruben Providence delivered a pinpoint cross into the six-yard box for forward Wilson Isidor, but Isidor failed to make clean contact with the ball and the chance went begging. Ten minutes later, striker Frantzdy Pierrot got on the end of another cross to nod a header toward goal, but his effort drifted just wide of the left post, leaving Haiti still searching for its first ever World Cup point.

The packed stadium was dominated by Scotland’s famously passionate fanbase, the Tartan Army, who turned the venue located 30 miles outside Boston into a sea of maroon, creating a raucous atmosphere from kickoff to final whistle.

Looking ahead to the next round of group fixtures, Scotland will remain in Foxborough to face Morocco at Gillette Stadium next Friday, while Haiti will travel to Philadelphia to take on Brazil the same day.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup kicked off with a tense Group C opener at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, where five-time champions Brazil escaped a humiliating opening-match defeat thanks to a moment of individual magic from star forward Vinicius Jr, who forced a 1-1 draw against a dominant Morocco side.

Heading into the tournament, Vinicius made his ambitions clear: he has not come to this World Cup to claim individual honors, but to lift Brazil back to the summit of global football. Just 90 minutes later, the Real Madrid winger proved he was willing to put in the work to back up those words, single-handedly rescuing his side when all looked lost.

Trailing 1-0 from an early Ismael Saibari strike and outplayed for large portions of the first half, Brazil looked on course for their first opening World Cup defeat since 1934. That was until a well-placed pass from Bruno Guimaraes found Vinicius unmarked on the left edge of Morocco’s penalty area in the 62nd minute. Cutting inside onto his stronger right foot, the 25-year-old unleashed a thunderous strike that flew into the top corner of the net, leaving Morocco goalkeeper Yassine Bono with no chance of making a save. The strike, described by former England goalkeeper Joe Hart as a “lightning bolt” of quality, dragged Brazil back level and avoided an unwanted place in the history books.

Despite the last-gasp equalizer, Brazil’s performance raised major questions about the squad’s depth and tactical balance, with analysts and former players unanimous in their criticism of the five-time champions’ ragged display. South American football expert Tim Vickery summed up the mood after the match, telling BBC Sport: “Ideally you want the team to make the stars, here you have a case of the star saving the team.”

The underlying issues plaguing Brazil were clear for all to see. The current squad is heavily overloaded with attacking wingers, but critically short of depth in central midfield. Veteran 34-year-old Casemiro struggled to keep pace with Morocco’s dynamic midfield through the stifling New Jersey heat, and was substituted at half-time after failing to impose himself on the game. Defender Roger Ibanez also did not return for the second half as head coach Carlo Ancelotti, making his World Cup head coaching debut at the age of 67, scrambled to fix the team’s obvious shortcomings.

Former Uruguay and Chelsea midfielder Gus Poyet said he was shocked by Brazil’s technical sloppiness, noting: “I was surprised how bad technically they were today. I don’t know if it was the pitch, maybe the pitch didn’t help but they were missing passes, simple passes that you would expect the Brazilian players to do well.”

For long spells of the match, Brazil lacked the iconic swagger that has defined generations of Brazilian greats from Pele to Ronaldo, Ronaldinho to Zico. This indifferent form is not a new issue: Brazil narrowly qualified for the 2026 tournament after a disastrous qualifying campaign that saw them drop six defeats from 18 matches, finishing fifth in the South American standings and only securing their place in the final draw at the last minute. Ancelotti, the first foreign head coach to lead Brazil at a World Cup, was brought in specifically to steady the ship after that rocky qualifying run, and admitted after Friday’s draw that his side had fallen short of expectations.

In his post-match press conference, the five-time Champions League-winning coach said: “I am sorry we didn’t play as well as we hoped. It wasn’t a bad result but we will keep picking up. We have to do better, that’s very clear. We have to have a more balanced team and we have to be more aggressive. I am not disappointed but I am not satisfied either. Not everything goes perfect and we have to accept criticism.”

Vickery, however, noted that Brazil’s ability to snatch a draw despite a poor performance is exactly what makes them such a dangerous opponent at major tournaments: “How many teams can play that badly and still be in the game? It’s the individuality.”

History also offers Brazil fans a glimmer of hope, with experts pointing out that this expanded 48-team World Cup is a marathon, not a sprint. Four years ago in Qatar, Argentina suffered a shocking opening defeat to Saudi Arabia, before going on to lift the trophy, a example of how slow starts do not rule out ultimate success.

All eyes will remain on Vinicius, who entered this tournament already carrying the weight of expectation to become the next great Brazilian superstar. The equalizer against Morocco marked his 10th international goal for Brazil, with three of those strikes coming on American soil. Doubts have lingered ever since Brazil’s penalty shootout exit to Croatia in the 2022 World Cup quarter-finals, but the Real Madrid forward says he is ready to step into the leading role the national team needs.

Speaking before the match, Vinicius said: “I feel great freedom and sincere trust from Ancelotti. He is sure I can do for the national team what I do for Real Madrid. I want to try to write the history of the country and the national team. We must do everything to win.”

Brazil next face Haiti in Philadelphia on 19 June, before concluding their group stage campaign against Scotland in Miami on 24 June. They are still heavily favored to progress to the knockout stage, but Friday’s draw has left major questions unanswered. Brazil have not won the World Cup since 2002, marking a 24-year title drought for the most successful nation in World Cup history. A failure to go all the way this tournament will spark intense scrutiny over the future direction of Brazilian football, but for now, Vinicius’s moment of magic has kept their dream of a sixth title alive.

LOS ANGELES, INGLEWOOD — With nearly five decades of experience capturing iconic sports moments behind the camera, veteran Associated Press freelance photographer Jayne Kamin-Oncea has built a decades-long career documenting athletic competition, including 10 years covering major events in Southern California for the AP and 27 years with the *Los Angeles Times*. Her career traces back to 1978, when she got her start as an AP stringer in Miami while still earning her degree at the University of Miami. This tournament, she captured one of the most talked-about images from the opening match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup hosted on U.S. soil, the Friday matchup between the U.S. Men’s National Team and Paraguay. In a first-person breakdown, Kamin-Oncea walked through how the standout shot came together. From the opening kickoff, the energy inside SoFi Stadium was palpable, with U.S. forward Alex Freeman and his teammates locking in on their opponent from the first whistle. For Kamin-Oncea, the goal of any sideline coverage is to capture the raw intensity of players fighting to keep the ball in play, moments that often leave them teetering on the edge of the out-of-bounds line, walking a figurative tightrope between maintaining possession and turning the ball over. As the play unfolded, she immediately recognized she was framing a shot that would stand out for its raw tension. The final frame that made the cut shows Freeman airborne, elevated well above Paraguay’s Antonio Sanabria’s head and shoulders — a composition that many have interpreted as a visual metaphor for the U.S. team’s dominant performance over Paraguay in the matchup. To capture the shot, Kamin-Oncea relied on her trusted setup: a Nikon Z9 paired with a 400mm f/2.8 lens. With the action unfolding deep downfield, she activated the camera’s crop sensor button to get a tighter framing of the play, a choice that let her zoom in on the moment without sacrificing image quality. While many sports photographers critique the natural lighting conditions inside SoFi Stadium, Kamin-Oncea says the light works perfectly with her camera configuration, making it easy to get sharp, vivid shots. Her go-to settings for fast-paced soccer action include a 30 frames per second continuous shooting speed, with a one-third second pre-release buffer that lets her capture moments starting just before she fully presses the shutter. She always uses an extremely high shutter speed of 1/4000 of a second to eliminate any motion blur from fast-moving players, and adjusts the ISO on the fly to match shifting light conditions throughout the match. When evaluating what makes the shot work so well, Kamin-Oncea points to the striking composition: Freeman’s dramatic vertical jump above Sanabria, with his leg extended high, creates a dynamic visual that immediately draws the eye. She added that the sequence of shots from the play improved steadily through the final frames, with the last shot capturing the peak of the action perfectly. The image is just one of hundreds of shots from AP’s ongoing 2026 FIFA World Cup coverage, which can be accessed via the AP News hub.

Three days into the 2026 FIFA World Cup co-hosted by the United States, one moment already stands out as a potential tournament icon — and it will take something extraordinary to unseat Gio Reyna’s masterful late finish as the goal of the competition. The stunning strike capped a dominant 4-1 opening match victory for the U.S. Men’s National Team over Paraguay at Los Angeles Stadium, and it was the perfect encapsulation of the free-flowing attacking soccer manager Mauricio Pochettino has built this squad around.

With the match deep into second-half stoppage time, clocked at 96 minutes and 10 seconds, the USMNT only needed to hold possession to kill the clock and secure their win. Paraguay had already pulled one goal back in the second half, and any late lapse could have sparked an unwanted rally for the South American side. What unfolded over the next 70 seconds, though, was nothing short of soccer brilliance: Pochettino’s side strung together 26 consecutive passes, moving the ball from their own left defensive end all the way across the pitch to the attacking final third. Not a single Paraguayan defender managed to get a touch on the ball, left gasping and chasing shadows as the American side shifted the play with clinical precision.

The sequence ended with Gio Reyna, an 82nd-minute substitute brought on to replace the standout Malik Tillman, collecting a well-weighted pass from Alexander Freeman just outside the 18-yard box. The attacking midfielder took one calm touch to control the pass, a second to carry the ball into the penalty area, and curled a perfectly placed strike with the outside of his right boot past Paraguay goalkeeper Orlando Gill into the far corner of the net. The goal sent the capacity crowd of American supporters into a frenzy, and the celebration quickly spilled off the field: as Reyna wheeled away, hands pressed to his ears in a widely interpreted nod to years of criticism following his 2022 World Cup controversy, he was mobbed by teammates, on-pitch substitutes and even Pochettino, who sprinted from the touchline to join the historic moment.

Pundits were quick to draw parallels between Reyna’s strike and the most iconic team goal in World Cup history: Carlos Alberto’s late finish for Brazil against Italy in the 1970 World Cup final. That legendary goal, which also came in a 4-1 win, featured a similarly smooth multi-pass sequence finished by the Brazilian captain late in the match. While the 1970 strike came with a world title on the line, the 2026 opening goal carried enormous stakes of its own for the USMNT: it served as a resounding opening statement against a Paraguay side that boasted one of the strongest defensive records among South American qualifiers. For context, the USMNT has already scored more goals in this single opening match than they managed across the entire 2022 Qatar World Cup, where they netted just three times before bowing out in the Round of 16.

The moment also carried deep personal significance for Reyna, who returns to the World Cup stage after a highly public controversy in 2022. Four years ago in Qatar, then-manager Gregg Berhalter publicly revealed that he nearly sent Reyna home from the tournament over allegations of a lack of effort in training and matches. The fallout dominated the USMNT’s lead-up to this cycle, and Pochettino made a notably bold choice to include Reyna in his 2026 squad despite the player making just four league starts for Borussia Mönchengladbach in the 2025-26 season, with none coming after December 19.

Political figures even weighed in on the historic win: former U.S. President Donald Trump offered public congratulations via his social media platform on Saturday, writing, “Congratulations to Team USA on their Big Win, 4-1, over a very good Paraguay team. Keep it going!”

The result marks a major milestone for the USMNT project Pochettino has built since taking over as manager in 2024, after previous successful stints leading Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur. The side reached the Gold Cup final in 2025, and Pochettino has never hidden his ambition to compete for the 2026 title on home soil, with “Why not us?” adopted as the team’s unofficial tournament motto.

The Argentine manager emphasized that the extended preparation window ahead of the World Cup has allowed him to implement his system fully, something that is rarely possible for international managers ahead of major tournaments. “When you only have few days to reunite and to play, you only select players, but you cannot coach players,” he explained after Friday’s match. “Only in this type of tournament like the Gold Cup or now the World Cup, because you have preparation, two, three, four weeks, I think that is the only moment that we can coach.”

Reyna’s goal, he added, was the perfect example of his philosophy of prioritizing collective play over individual stardom. “One thing we need to praise is the collective effort,” Pochettino said.

Fans will long debate whether this is the greatest goal in USMNT World Cup history, with several iconic strikes standing out from decades past. In 1989, Paul Caligiuri’s long-range volley against Trinidad and Tobago secured the U.S.’s first World Cup qualification berth since 1950. At the 1994 World Cup, the last time the U.S. hosted the tournament, Eric Wynalda’s memorable free kick against Switzerland earned the Americans their first World Cup point since 1950. More recently, Benny Feilhaber’s match-winning volley claimed the 2007 Gold Cup title for the U.S. But few can deny that Reyna’s spectacular team goal has set an early high bar for the 2026 tournament, both for the USMNT and for the rest of the competing nations.