Three sides nobody had
on the bingo card. Curaçao. Cape Verde. Bosnia.

Curaçao's 2026 World Cup qualification is the single most-improbable story of the entire cycle. A Caribbean island of roughly 150,000 residents — a former Netherlands Antilles territory, autonomous within the Kingdom of the Netherlands since 2010 — qualifying for a senior World Cup at any point was, until late 2025, a theoretical sentence. The CONCACAF expansion to six direct qualification slots created the opening; Dick Advocaat's squad of Dutch-developed players with Curaçaoan heritage did the rest. They are the smallest country by population ever to qualify for a FIFA World Cup, by a margin of more than two-to-one over the previous record holder (Iceland, ≈360,000, at Russia 2018).

The head coach is the load-bearing fact of the story. Dick Advocaat — 78 at the start of the tournament, ex-Netherlands head coach at three different stretches, ex-Rangers, ex-Sunderland, ex-Sochi, ex-half-the-Eredivisie at various points — took the job in January 2024. The squad he assembled is almost entirely Dutch-born or Dutch-raised: Tahith Chong at Sheffield United, Roshon van Eijma at Cambuur, Brandley Kuwas, Cuco Martina, Juninho Bacuna at HJK Helsinki, plus a handful of Eredivisie regulars. The football is pragmatic, defensively organised, designed around a single counter-attacking forward and a low block — exactly the kind of project an experienced manager assembles when the talent gap is real and the structural advantage is patience.

Group E is the hardest possible draw. Germany under Julian Nagelsmann is the seeded test; Ivory Coast are the reigning African champion; Ecuador have the deepest CV any Ecuadorian squad has ever assembled. Curaçao's pre-tournament expectation is to lose all three games and exit the group with zero points and a heavy goal difference. Anything more — a single point, a single goal scored in open play, a respectable defeat — would constitute a result the country's population would discuss for decades. The story is qualification itself; the tournament is, structurally, the lap of honour.

Cape Verde — population approximately 550,000, an archipelago of ten inhabited islands off the West African coast — arrive at their first ever World Cup. Until 2026, the country's footballing high point was an AFCON 2023 quarter-final run on Ivorian soil (eliminated by hosts and eventual champions Ivory Coast). The 2026 qualifying campaign was, in CAF Group D, a methodical performance — the kind of group win that does not produce a defining moment but does produce a Tuesday-night flight to North America. They are the smallest African nation by population ever to qualify for a World Cup.

The head coach has been Pedro Brito — universally known as Bubista — since 2020. Cape Verdean-born, Cape Verdean-raised, the first head coach the federation has retained across two major-tournament cycles. The football is what the squad allows: a tightly-organised mid-block, two diligent wide forwards, a designated set-piece routine that has produced an above-average percentage of the squad's qualifying goals. The senior names are mostly Portuguese-club-developed or playing in the European second tier: Ryan Mendes (Hatayspor), Garry Rodrigues (somewhere in Saudi Arabia), Jamiro Monteiro (San Jose Earthquakes in MLS), Bryan Teixeira, and a generation of younger players from the Cape Verdean diaspora who have chosen the country over Portugal.

Group H pairs Cape Verde with Spain, Uruguay, and Saudi Arabia. Spain are the European champions; Uruguay have the best midfield in the Americas; Saudi Arabia are the pot-3 AFC piece whose 2-1 win over Argentina in Qatar 2022 remains the most-cited upset of the modern World Cup era. The structural expectation is the same as Curaçao's — three losses, exit the group, end the tournament with a story rather than a result. What Cape Verde have that Curaçao do not is the AFCON 2023 evidence: this is a team that has, on a continental stage, beaten teams it had no statistical right to beat. The set-piece routines that delivered those African results are the variable to watch.

Bosnia and Herzegovina's 2026 World Cup qualification is the story that quietly displaced Italy from a third consecutive tournament. Bosnia finished second in UEFA Group H behind Austria and entered the Path A play-offs in March 2026. They beat Wales 1-1 (4-2 on penalties) in the semi-final — Edin Džeko equalising in the 87th minute to force extra time, the entire shootout going Bosnia's way — and then beat Italy 1-1 (4-2 on penalties) in the play-off final. The result is the biggest in the country's footballing history. Italy, four-time World Cup champions, miss a third consecutive tournament.

The manager is Sergej Barbarez, the former Bosnia captain and Hamburger SV forward who was appointed in April 2024 with zero senior managerial experience. The federation's brief was to end a decade of drift that had seen the country fall from its 2014 World Cup peak to the kind of mid-pack UEFA team whose qualifying campaigns ended without consequence. Barbarez's system is a flexible back-three, two creative tens between the lines, and Edin Džeko as the focal point — exactly the system the talent in the squad supports. Džeko, 40 years old, captain, all-time Bosnia top scorer (72 goals in 146 caps), will be the second-oldest outfield player ever to feature at a senior World Cup.

Group B is genuinely winnable in places. Canada is the seeded host, Switzerland the experienced pot-2 European piece, Qatar the pot-3 AFC entrant. Bosnia's pre-tournament expectation is to compete for second place behind Canada — the country is not the underdog Cape Verde and Curaçao are, but the squad is older, thinner, and a year on from the playoff peak. The tournament is, for this generation, almost certainly the last. Beating Wales and Italy on penalties to qualify was the result of the country's footballing history; doing anything more in the group stage in June would be the bonus.