World Cup 2026 debutants: the stories behind Cabo Verde, Curaçao, Jordan and Uzbekistan

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is already underway – Mexico beat South Africa 2-0, South Korea won 2-1 against the Czech Republic – and four nations that have never been to a World Cup in their history are days away from their opening fixtures.

The expanded 48-team format made more space available. But Cabo Verde, Curaçao, Jordan and Uzbekistan did not stumble through a back door – they qualified on merit, in some cases, outrunning far bigger football nations to get here.

Here is what you need to know about each of the four nations making their FIFA World Cup 2026 debut – where they come from and how they got here.

Cabo Verde: the Blue Sharks rewrite African football

A volcanic archipelago of ten islands off Africa’s west coast, Cabo Verde has a population of around 529,000, smaller than most European cities.

Coach Bubista guided the Blue Sharks to a World Cup by topping their African qualifying group above Cameroon. The squad is built largely from the Portuguese diaspora scattered across Europe and MLS, with 36-year-old Ryan Mendes – Cabo Verde’s all-time leading scorer and most-capped player – captaining the side in what is almost certainly his only World Cup appearance. Logan Costa, a 25-year-old centre-back at Villarreal, is the one player in the squad competing in one of Europe’s top five leagues and anchors the defence.

Their group is Spain, Uruguay and Saudi Arabia – one of the toughest draws in the tournament. For a country that has spent a decade consistently outperforming its resources, qualifying is the foundation on which everything else now builds.

They face Spain on 15 June (16 June, 12 am in China Standard Time).

Curaçao: the smallest nation ever to reach a World Cup

Curaçao is a constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands – a Caribbean island of roughly 150,000 people sitting off the coast of Venezuela. By both land area and population, it is the smallest nation ever to qualify for a men’s World Cup, and it did so unbeaten through CONCACAF qualifying.

Their story is inseparable from the Dutch connection. A FIFA rule change allowed players who had represented the Netherlands at the youth level to switch allegiance to Curaçao, and 25 of their 26 squad members were born in the Netherlands.

Captain Leandro Bacuna and his brother Juninho are the names most familiar to European fans, having spent years in the English Championship. Tahith Chong – the one player actually born on the island – is a former Manchester United academy graduate, now at Sheffield United, who only made his Curaçao debut in September 2025.

They open against Germany on 14 June (15 June, 1 am in CST), a match that the entire island will be watching simultaneously.

[See more: Where to watch the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the Greater Bay Area]

Jordan: more than a decade of near-misses, finally over

Jordan failed to qualify for more than ten consecutive World Cup campaigns. This generation finally broke through, arriving off the back of a runner-up finish at the 2023 AFC Asian Cup – the furthest any Jordanian side had gone in a major tournament.

The country’s prime minister issued an official decree pushing back the start of the working day for each of Jordan’s group-stage fixtures.

The talisman carrying those expectations is Mousa Al-Tamari, the Rennes winger known as “Jordan’s Messi,” who scored seven goals and contributed 11 assists in 36 Ligue 1 appearances last season. Their group ends with Argentina – what would be the biggest match in Jordanian football history – and coach Jamal Sellami, who has openly modelled his approach on Morocco’s 2022 semi-final run, believes that fixture is not just one to survive.

They open against Austria on 17 June (17 June, noon in China Standard Time).

Uzbekistan: Italy’s World Cup winner, coaching for someone else

Italy’s 2006 World Cup-winning captain and Ballon d’Or winner Fabio Cannavaro is absent from this tournament with the country he once lifted the trophy for, but is still present at the 2026 World Cup – this time, as the head coach for Uzbekistan.

The Central Asian nation of nearly 38 million qualified from the AFC’s third round and arrives anchored by Abdukodir Khusanov, a 22-year-old Manchester City defender already considered one of the most promising players in Asia, and Eldor Shomurodov, the captain and all-time leading scorer.

They open against Colombia on 17 June (18 June, 10 am in CST), with Portugal to follow in what will be the biggest test in Central Asian football history.