The first national football team to bear the name Curaçao was the
Territory of Curaçao national football team, which made its debut in 1924 in an away match against neighboring
Aruba, a match which the Territory of Curaçao won four to nil. In December 1954, the territory of Curaçao became the
Netherlands Antilles, and following a constitutional change the Netherlands Antilles were designated a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which included the islands of
Aruba,
Bonaire,
Saba,
Sint Eustatius and
Sint Maarten. The name of the Curaçao team changed to
Netherlands Antilles national team, representing all six islands. In 1986, Aruba became a country within the Kingdom in its own right, with its own
Aruba national team and subsequently Aruban players no longer represented the Netherlands Antilles. On 10 October 2010, the Netherlands Antilles were dissolved, and Curaçao and
Sint Maarten became countries in their own right, while Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius became part of the Netherlands proper. Although not a
sovereign state, Curaçao (the largest island territory in the Netherlands Antilles) appeared on the FIFA member list in March 2011, as successor of the
Netherlands Antilles. As well as taking on the
Netherlands Antilles' FIFA membership,
Curaçao was recognised as the direct successor of the former (similarly to how
Serbia is regarded the direct successor of
Yugoslavia, and
Russia for the
Soviet Union), and took on its historical records and FIFA ranking. They played their first match as the newly formed Curaçao national team on 20 August 2011 against
Dominican Republic at the
Estadio Panamericano, with the match ending in a 1–0 loss for Curaçao. During the
CONCACAF Qualification for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, Curaçao achieved a major feat when they defeated Cuba 1–1 with the
away goals rule.
CONCACAF Gold Cup debut After a strong qualification campaign, Curaçao defeated host
Martinique in the semi-finals of the
2017 edition of the
Caribbean Cup with the score of 2–1. They met defending champions and six-time winners,
Jamaica. Curaçao won their first ever Caribbean Cup by defeating Jamaica, again with the scoreline of 2–1 which see Curaçao qualified to their first ever
CONCACAF Gold Cup. Curaçao was then drawn in Group C in the
2017 CONCACAF Gold Cup alongside Jamaica,
El Salvador and
Mexico but unfortunately, lost all of their group stage matches. In the next edition of the
2019 CONCACAF Gold Cup, Curaçao was then drawn in Group C alongside El Salvador, Jamaica and
Honduras. On 21 June 2019, Curaçao got their first win in the CONCACAF Gold Cup where
Leandro Bacuna scored in a 1–0 win over Honduras. With a much needed win to qualified to the next round,
Juriën Gaari scored a stoppage time goal against Jamaica in the last group stage fixtures which saw Curaçao finishing as runners-up in the group stage thus qualifying to the knockout stage. In the quarter-finals, Curaçao then bowed out from the tournament after losing to
United States.
FIFA World Cup debut In November 2025, during the
2026 FIFA World Cup qualification, Curaçao drew 0–0 against Jamaica, making Curaçao the smallest nation by both population and area (only five weeks after
Cape Verde had broken the area record) ever to qualify for the
FIFA World Cup in history. Their manager,
Dick Advocaat, would have become the oldest manager in history to coach a team the during the FIFA World Cup. On 23 February 2026, Advocaat would resign as Curaçao's manager due to personal reasons regarding the health of his daughter. Subsequently,
Fred Rutten was appointed as head coach ahead of the World Cup. ==Team image==