The Curaçao fans arrived by the busload, draped in their nation’s blue banner, singing and cheering as they made their way toward Houston Stadium for a match that almost no one expected them to win.
But the score, many of the fans said, would not especially matter. Their Caribbean island country, which has around 160,000 residents, was in the World Cup. And that was everything.
“It’s something I cannot explain: Something big, something out of this world,” said Monique Kroon, 58, a baker who made the trip from Curaçao to Texas with her husband despite not being much of a soccer fan. “If I die tomorrow,” she added, “I’ll die happy.”
Mizzuti Werleman, 48, who works in air traffic control in Curaçao, had blue feathers in her hair and a blue pompom in her hand.
“It’s not about winning,” she said before heading into the stadium. Just by being there, she said, “we already won.”
On a Houston morning that alternated between merely humid and humid with rain, a not-insignificant percentage of Curaçao’s population posed for photos with sheriff’s deputies, engaged in friendly banter with their German opponents and snacked on brisket sandwiches from a food truck parked outside the stadium.
Michelanca Zuiverloon said that her country’s competing on the global stage under the Curaçao flag had greater meaning given the island’s history as a Dutch colony.
“I feel like the current millennial generations — we are becoming more patriotic,” said Ms. Zuiverloon, 36, a journalist. “It’s very important that we can finally stand as a country on our own, separate from the Netherlands.”
Others described the importance of introducing their nation to members of a global television audience that might not know anything about Curaçao, including that it even exists.
Many of the Curaçao fans said they made plans to travel to the United States as soon as their team qualified for the World Cup, becoming the smallest country to ever do so. Tickets to their team’s game against Germany on Sunday cost hundreds of dollars, and the flights were no bargain, either.
Still, several were planning to stay throughout the group stage of the tournament, traveling further to watch their team’s upcoming matches in Kansas City, Mo., and Philadelphia. The phrase “once-in-a-lifetime experience” came up again and again.
Inside the stadium, which is usually home to the Houston Texans of the N.F.L., the Curaçao fans filled about four and a half sections of the lower bowl and small portions of the upper deck, perhaps 10 percent of the overall seats.
They were vastly outnumbered by the fans from Germany, a nation with about 83 million residents — more than 500 times the population of Curaçao — and with one of the best soccer teams in the world.
The start of the match went as most soccer experts had expected it, with a quick goal for the Germans. But midway through the first half, the Curaçao players found their form, and the fans in blue stood as their team pressed the ball into the penalty box.
Before long, Livano Comenencia of Curaçao launched a strong, clean shot. The ball glanced off the German goalkeeper’s fingertips and into the back of the net.
As the players piled on each other along the sideline, fans in the Curaçao section let loose a euphoric cheer that, at least for a moment, made it sound as if their country was the one filling 90 percent of the stadium.
Indeed, Curaçao had arrived at the World Cup.
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