Dick Rises: Dick Advocaat And The Curacao National Team Have Qualified For The World Cup, Becoming The Smallest Nation To Ever Do So

The Blue Wave! Look, I know most of you don't care about the World Cup in the midst of the best part of the year in sports right now with virtually everyone playing besides baseball. But when next summer hits, and you're watching a below .500 Mets or Red Sox team play with no passion in what seems like an everyday grueling task, you're going to be watching The Beautiful Game. And arguably the biggest story of it was none other than the Curacao national team, a nation with a population of 156,115, who had a chance to become the smallest country to qualify after they extended Dick:

And yesterday after a 0-0 draw full-time against Jamaica, they've officially done it. I know people talk about the pageantry of college football, but it's worth noting when it just means more:

What an absolute journey for the small island. It doesn't even matter if you have no chance of actually making it out of your group because this is the type of stuff that you'll remember for a lifetime. They don't even have the names on the back of their jersey and they're led by Dick Advocaat, who was the manager of the Netherlands in 2004 and is still coaching at 77 despite coaching for legitimately 45 years at this point:

And not only did they qualify, but they even won their group above Jamaica. Football (the original one) has a funny way of showing logic sometimes if you think about the fact that India, a country with a population of 1.4 billion, didn't qualify but the scrappy island did. No names on the roster, no real budget, just pure heart. What a story. 

Go Blue Wave go!