India, Nov. 19 -- Curacao etched their name into football history on Tuesday by becoming the smallest nation by population ever to qualify for the FIFA World Cup, sealing their place at the 2026 tournament with a nerve-shredding 0-0 draw against Jamaica in Kingston. With just 158,000 residents, the Caribbean island, within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is now the tiniest country (by population) to reach the global finals, surpassing Iceland's 2018 record when the Nordic nation qualified with more than double Curacao's population.

To illustrate the scale of the achievement, Curacao's population is almost one-tenth that of NOIDA, a city in India's National Capital Region projected to reach one million people this year. India's capital, D...