The most lopsided scoreline of the 2026 World Cup’s opening round was etched into history in Houston on Sunday, as Caribbean debutants Curaçao were dismantled 7-1 by four-time champions Germany. Yet amid the wreckage of a match that briefly flickered with hope when Livano Comenencia cancelled out Felix Nmecha’s early strike, the island nation’s Dutch coach, Dick Advocaat, refused to strike a note of despair. At 78, Advocaat is the oldest manager ever to lead a side at a men’s World Cup finals, and his post-match remarks suggested that he views the tournament not as a single 90-minute ordeal but as a three-act campaign. “We have to turn this into a beautiful World Cup,” he said, in words that were transmitted by news agencies and picked up with keen interest as far away as Jakarta and São Paulo.

From a Caribbean vantage point, the mere act of sharing a pitch with Germany represented a triumph of footballing globalisation. Curaçao, a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands with a population smaller than that of most European medium-sized cities, has long operated in the sporting shadow of the Dutch metropolis. Advocaat, a man who has coached the Netherlands, South Korea and a string of club sides across Europe, embodies that transatlantic umbilical cord. After Comenencia’s equaliser, he rose from his seat on the bench in a brief moment of abandon, but that parity was swiftly crushed by a merciless German counter-punch that yielded six further goals from Nico Schlotterbeck, Kai Havertz’s brace, Jamal Musiala, Nathaniel Brown and Deniz Undav.

Viewed from European press rooms, the result was a predictable reassertion of the old order, yet the narrative held a different resonance in parts of Asia. Across Indonesian and Indian media, the story was not the margin of defeat but the persistence of ambition in the face of it. Advocaat’s insistence that his players “should not be ashamed” and his conviction that they “can still cause surprises in the second and third matches” were widely quoted, framing Curaçao as an emblem of sporting aspiration for smaller footballing nations. There was a palpable sense, too, of respect for a coach who, even at an age when most of his peers have retired, remains emotionally susceptible to the occasion—Brazilian reports noted that he had been visibly moved before kick-off.

Looking ahead, the practical arithmetic of Group E leaves Curaçao needing a sharp upturn in performance to avoid elimination. Advocaat’s faith in a turnaround rests on the idea that the most punishing lesson can also be the most instructive. The defensive naivety that Germany exploited so ruthlessly is, in theory, correctable before Curaçao face their next opponents. Whether that translates into a competitive showing will test Advocaat’s belief that World Cup experience, however brutal, is cumulative. For a nation making its bow on the game’s grandest stage, the 7-1 scoreline will linger as a brutal benchmark; for their septuagenarian coach, it is already being repurposed as the prologue to a still-unwritten surprise.