{"id":495671,"date":"2026-06-25T23:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T23:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/495671\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T23:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T23:46:10","slug":"fifa-world-cup-curacao-eliminated-from-world-cup-with-loss-to-ivory-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/495671\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifa World Cup: Cura\u00e7ao eliminated from World Cup with loss to Ivory Coast"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2024 African champions had never previously got out of their group in three previous appearances at the World Cup, and their reward for this historic performance is a last-32 tie next Wednesday in Dallas.<\/p>\n

That will be against the runners-up in Group I, which means a very tough test against either France \u2013 the country where Pepe and several other Ivorian players were born \u2013 or Norway.<\/p>\n

Curacao, with its population of barely 160,000, had already made history just by being at the World Cup, but the smallest nation ever to reach the finals go home after finishing bottom of the section without a win.<\/p>\n

Dick Advocaat\u2019s team were thrashed 7-1 by Germany on their tournament debut, but the high point came in their next game as they withstood a barrage to hold Ecuador to a 0-0 draw.<\/p>\n

They couldn\u2019t repeat that performance here, but still did their fans proud in a game watched by a sell-out crowd of 68,324 at Lincoln Financial Field \u2013 such an attendance on a Thursday afternoon (local time) is proof that the World Cup has definitely made its mark on the United States.<\/p>\n

Orange Ivory Coast shirts were visible all around the ground and their fans were soon celebrating as the opening goal arrived early.<\/p>\n

Yan Diomande, one of the most exciting young talents at the tournament, was the provider as the RB Leipzig winger proved too sharp for his marker and cut the ball back for Pepe to turn it in.<\/p>\n

Ten of the Curacao starting line-up were born in the Netherlands and many of their players have previously worn the orange of the Dutch national team at different levels, right up to the senior side.<\/p>\n

They are certainly no mugs, and they did have chances here, like when Jurien Gaari sent a shot just past the post from range, and Leandro Bacuna dribbled into the box only to shoot wide late in the first half.<\/p>\n

Sherel Floranus flashed an effort narrowly over not long after the restart, but Curacao could not recover after falling further behind in the 64th minute.<\/p>\n

Ibrahim Sangare of Nottingham Forest made the goal with an excellent through ball for Pepe, who controlled inside the area before slotting beyond Eloy Room and into the far corner.<\/p>\n

Go all in to unlock every Fifa World Cup 2026 match with a TVNZ+ Event Pass<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2024 African champions had never previously got out of their group in three previous appearances at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4498,3021,17092,11586,1887,10542,248123,233177,176515,8127,6440,36862,1888,4999,71,24195,22946,2225,111,139,95231,69,21712,19328,75700,22312,213,2044,44263,61,16559,17251,102,377],"class_list":["post-495671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-beat","tag-bring","tag-caribbean","tag-coast","tag-countrys","tag-cup","tag-curaao","tag-curacao","tag-eliminated","tag-end","tag-ever","tag-fifa","tag-first","tag-friday","tag-from","tag-ivory","tag-knockout","tag-loss","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nicolas","tag-nz","tag-pepe","tag-reach","tag-rounds","tag-scored","tag-sports","tag-time","tag-tiny","tag-to","tag-tournament","tag-twice","tag-with","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}