Curaçao

Curaçao 2019-20 Home

It is blue. Ok, yes, there’s a bit more than just that. It’s just, when compared to their older shirts, this really feels low effort. Some orangey-yellow accenting under the sleeves and down the sides prevents it being just one colour and the stripes across the front are subtle but pleasing to the eye. A transfer badge is also disappointing, though the design is at least simple and clean.

Used across the 2019 Gold Cup and 2019-20 Nations League, Curaçao were successful in both competitions. In the Gold Cup they went through on goal difference, having lost to El Salvador, beaten Honduras and drawn with Jamaica. Then they came up against the USA and held them to only a single goal in a 1-0 defeat. Drawn with Haiti and Costa Rica in League A of the Nations League they finished 2^nd, a point off of Costa Rica who would go onto the Nations League finals.

These results were unusually good for Curaçao, who have started to attract their Dutch based talent to them. While technically only formed in 2010 (after the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles), their parent team had not qualified for the Gold Cup since 1973 and Curaçao continued that trend until they made the 2015 Gold Cup, won the 2017 Caribbean Cup and then reached the knockout stages of the 2019 Gold Cup! They’ve not yet come close to the World Cup, or even the Hexagonal stage, but were drawn as top seeds for their initial 2022 qualifying group so expect more from them this time out.

With such a brief time to be active, Curaçao have done little on the women’s side. They didn’t show up to the 2014 Caribbean Cup but took a narrow loss against Antigua & Barbuda and a narrow win against Guadeloupe in the 2018 CFU Challenge Series before trying to qualify for the 2018 CONCACAF Championship. They finished 3^rd of 4 teams in their group (winners went on to a final Hexagonal qualifier), beating St Vincent and the Grenadines but losing to St Lucia and old friends Antigua and Barbuda. Very little to go on. On the men’s side, they’ve only once tried Olympic qualifying, where they came close to qualifying from the first round. At an U20 level they qualified for the 2013 Championship on a coin toss but then lost both games and have only managed to come close since. At an U17 level they’ve been to two championships, though didn’t have to qualify for one, scraping into the knockout stage in 2019 to get thrashed 4-0 by Canada. U15s have a CFU title but only 1 draw in CONCACAF. The women’s youth teams have appeared slightly sporadically, with the U20s coming close to a Championship qualification once but otherwise results have been poor outside of the U15s. The U15s have twice reached knockout football though!

In futsal they qualified for the 2016 tournament, finishing bottom of their group, and got an automatic spot in the 2020 edition. Certainly one of the better Caribbean futsal sides, they are nonetheless short of the main teams in CONCACAF and the likes of Cuba. Sadly, they have never entered a CONCACAF Beach Soccer competition to date.

Drawn as top seeds in their initial qualifying group for 2022, Curaçao will be expected to compete strongly for a spot in the final 8 team round-robin group. They might not be expected to then make it to the finals in Qatar, but if they make it that far, expect them to spring a surprise or two.