SportsSoccerFIFA World Cup

Two countries smaller than city of Surrey will play at FIFA World Cup

Preston Hodgkinson
Preston Hodgkinson
|
Nov 21 2025, 12:30 am
Two countries smaller than city of Surrey will play at FIFA World Cup
Marc Vasconcellos/The Enterprise/USA TODAY NETWORK/ Imagn Images

Who says you need to be a big country to make it to the FIFA World Cup?

Two especially tiny countries have booked their ticket to the 2026 World Cup, which will see seven matches hosted at BC Place in Vancouver.

They’re so small, in fact, that they have populations smaller than the city of Surrey, B.C. (568,322 people according to the 2021 Canadian Census) are World Cup bound.

Cape Verde

Cape Verde will make its World Cup debut in 2026.

The island nation off the west coast of Africa, which gained independence from Portugal in 1975, has a population of just 561,900 people.

Cape Verde is the third-smallest country to qualify for the men’s World Cup. Led by team captain Ryan Mendes, who plays professionally in TĆ¼rkiye, they booked their ticket to North America in October after defeating Eswatini 3-0 during qualifiers.

CuraƧaoĀ 

With a population of under 155,826 people, CuraƧao holds the new record for being the smallest nation ever to qualify for the World Cup.

That makes it smaller than not only Surrey, but Burnaby (249,125) and Richmond (209,937) too.

Iceland, which had a population of 352,721 when its team qualified for the 2018 World Cup, was previously the smallest country to ever qualify.

CuraƧao booked its ticket to the 2026 World Cup after playing to a 0-0 tie with Jamaica on Nov. 18, which helped them finish atop their four-team group.

The Caribbean island nation is considered an autonomous constituent country under the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Few players on the team are actually from CuraƧao, as they rely heavily on its diaspora. As a result, most of CuraƧao’s players were born and raised in the Netherlands, but had family connections that qualified them for the national team.

ADVERTISEMENT