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Journalism of Courage
The tiny Caribbean island completed a fairytale by qualifying for the FIFA World Cup and while their players and fans may not have any experience of how it feels to be at the biggest single-sport extravaganza on the planet, they are likely to have someone in their dugout who has been there before.
Advocaat is a significant name in the football history of the Netherlands, taking the reins of the national team on three separate occasions, apart from guiding teams like South Korea, Belgium, Russia, Serbia, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq, though taking Curacao to the World Cup – the smallest country ever to qualify – may arguably be his biggest achievement.
Advocaat started his coaching career in 1980 and came out of retirement to take up the Curacao job.
This could be the Dutchman’s third World Cup as a coach, after taking his home country to the quarterfinals of the 1994 World Cup, also in the United States, where they lost in a classic encounter against eventual winners Brazil. In 2006, he took South Korea to the showpiece tournament in Germany.
Nicknamed ‘The Little General’, in reference to his mentor Rinus Michels, he has also enjoyed success at the club level, winning the UEFA Cup (now christened the Europa League) with Zenit St Petersburg in 2008.
The veteran coach was not even with his team when Curacao sealed the historic qualification in Jamaica for “family reasons”, but watched the game from his home in The Hague and stayed in touch with his coaching staff through team manager Wouter Jansen.
“It’s a very difficult decision to have to leave the boys here. I had to make this decision with a heavy heart, but family is more important than football,” Advocaat said before the last game of the qualifying campaign.
It must not have been an easy watch as Jamaica hit the woodwork three times and had a penalty in second half added time overturned by the video assistant referee before the visitors secured a goalless draw that was enough for them to seal their World Cup ticket.
