{"id":736028,"date":"2026-06-14T13:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T13:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/736028\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T13:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T13:05:10","slug":"fifa-world-cup-2026-can-germany-netherlands-join-scotland-as-european-winners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/736028\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifa World Cup 2026: Can Germany &#038; Netherlands join Scotland as European winners"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;Small island with big heart&#8217;published at 12:17 BST<\/p>\n<p>12:17 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-fxb76l-Paragraph e14e9ror4\">Germany v Curacao (18:00 BST)<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1l98ssq-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/92e9032d-fd13-4bac-89ed-19c8a04690ae.png.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Curacao<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Curacao are thought to be one of only six countries who are not fully independent nations to qualify for a World Cup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That is because they remain part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, along with neighbours Aruba and Sint Maarten.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The others are England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland &#8211; as they are part of the United Kingdom &#8211; and 1938 qualifiers Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Natives of Curacao all hold Dutch passports &#8211; and until 2010 it was part of the Netherlands Antilles, a collection of Caribbean islands.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Curacao has only had its own national team since then &#8211; although the team are viewed as a continuation of the Dutch Antilles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">What would meeting the Netherlands in the knockout stages mean?<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Juninho Bacuna, who ended last season on loan at Volendam, said: &#8220;If that happens, I&#8217;m giving, not 100, not 200, I will give 1000% more than I will give ever.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We just want to show the world that we are a small island but we have got a big heart, belief and a lot of talent.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8216;Small island with big heart&#8217;published at 12:17 BST 12:17 BST Germany v Curacao (18:00 BST) Curacao Curacao are&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":736029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-736028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=736028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}