Curaçao has taken a step towards the World Cup next year in Qatar. The team of interim national coach Patrick Kluivert, the replacement for Guus Hiddink, played a 0-0 draw against direct competitor Guatemala in Willemstad on Tuesday evening local time and thus ends up as the winner of Group C in the first round of the qualification phase of the CONCACAF zone. .
In the first half, Curaçao showed good football against Guatemala, which had to win to reach the next round. However, Kluivert’s team also suffered a lot of ball loss from an attacking point of view and sometimes appeared hesitant in the back. In the second half the game went up and down and both Nick Hagen and Eloy Room were put to work. Hagen prevented an opening goal from Juninho Bacuna and Guatemala’s subsequent counterattack via Óscar Santis did not end in 0-1 thanks to a save by Room.
Guatemala insisted in the final phase, Hagen even went forward with a free kick in extra time, but Curaçao held out. A hard blow for Guatemala, which did not lose a single game in Group C and did not concede a single goal. Curaçao continues to the next round on the basis of goal difference (15-1 versus 14-0), thanks in part to a goal by Kenji Gorré in the extra time of the third group match with the British Virgin Islands (0-8).
Curaçao now faces a tough challenge in the next round: Panama, which closed Group D with four wins from four matches and a goal difference of 19-1. The winners of the duels between the group winners will face the top countries of the CONCACAF zone in the final round in an entire competition: Mexico, United States, Costa Rica, Jamaica and Honduras. The best three go to Qatar, the number four still plays an intercontinental play-off.