Kolkata, 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. Curacao's population is about 156,000, making it one of the smallest countries on the planet and comfortably bettering the record Iceland (population 350,000) had by making the 2018 World Cup. "They had a number of technical players and physically they were solid," Chhetri, the former India captain, said on Wednesday after Curacao's nerve-shredding 0-0 with Jamaica in Kingston took them to the top of the four-team group with 12 points. Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago had prior experience of qualifying for the World Cup but Curacao were the group's only unbeaten side. They beat Jamaica 2-0 at home and drew home and away with Trinidad and Tobago. "We didn't know they had players of European descent," said Chhetri, recently retired from international football for the second time. Igor Stimac did. "I knew they had players involved in serious football in Holland," he said, referring to a connection that can be traced back to the 17th century when Curacao was a Dutch colony. Curacao became a self-governing country in the Kingdom of Netherlands in 2010. In the current squad, former Manchester United academy player Tahith Chong is the only player born in the island. The rest, including five green lit by FIFA in August, are from Holland. The players are allowed dual nationalities. Tapping into Curacaoan footballers of Dutch heritage began in 2004. "Before that, it was with the local players who were not professional. From that moment, we have seen an enormous growth in the team," Gilbert Martina, the Curacao Football Federation president, told "The Athletic". The aim was simple: get players not good enough to represent the senior Dutch side....