India, Nov. 20 -- "Only a couple of us had heard of them." And even those that had did not know what to expect against Curacao, said Sunil Chhetri. It didn't take long to find out: in 18 minutes of that Kings Cup match in Buriram, Thailand, India were trailing 0-2. Chhetri pulled one back from the penalty spot but Curacao won 3-1.

Six years later, the tiny island in the Caribbean Sea have qualified for the 2026 World Cup, the smallest nation to have ever to have done that. As per Worldometer, Curacao's population is 1.85 lakh making it the 189th most populous country on the planet and comfortably bettering the record Iceland (population 3.5 lakh) had by making the 2018 World Cup.

"They had a number of technical players and physically th...