With a population of around 600,000, Cape Verde - an archipelago off Africa's west coast - became the second smallest country to reach a World Cup finals, after Iceland in 2018, when they qualified in October, but it was a record that was swiftly taken from them by Curacao.

Cape Verde beat Eswatini to secure their place at next year's tournament and complete a remarkable rise in football over the last 40 years.

They played their first World Cup qualifiers in 1990 and their progress towards eventually qualifying for the global tournament was aided by their search for players who had links to Cape Verde from around the world.

In their squad at the moment they have six Dutch-born players and one from Ireland - Shamrock Rovers defender Roberto Lopes.

The 33-year-old was born in Dublin but qualifies for Cape Verde through his father and was recruited to play for them through LinkedIn.

The tiny Caribbean island of Curacao will become the smallest nation to ever play at the World Cup after drawing with Steve McClaren's Jamaica to secure their place at the tournament.

The record was held by Iceland, who reached the 2018 finals, but their country is far bigger than Curacao, which has a population of just over 150,000 (similar to Cambridge or Huddersfield) and a land area of 171 square miles, smaller than the Isle of Man.

Former England manager McClaren resigned as Jamaica boss after his side, who needed a win in Kingston to qualify for their first World Cup since 1998, were held to a goalless draw, including having an injury-time penalty overruled by the video assistant referee (VAR).

And Curacao boss Dick Advocaat, who was not at the game for personal reasons, will become the oldest coach at a World Cup, aged 78, beating Otto Rehhagel's record when he was in charge of Greece aged 71 in 2010.

Curacao, 37 miles off the Venezuela coast, only became a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 2010, following the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles.

Ten years ago they were 150th in Fifa's world rankings. Now they are 82nd.

It has been a long road, but Jordan have finally qualified for a World Cup.

The Arab nation took part in qualifying for the first time 40 years ago but had not managed to go any further until this year.

They secured their place at next year's tournament by finishing runners-up in AFC qualifying Group B, behind South Korea.

In 2016, former Tottenham, Portsmouth and QPR boss Harry Redknapp managed Jordan for two World Cup qualifying games for the 2018 tournament in Russia.

Redknapp oversaw an 8-0 victory over Bangladesh, as well as a 5-1 loss to Australia.

Another one to have progressed for the first time from the Asian section of qualifying.

Uzbekistan have come agonisingly close to securing a World Cup spot on a couple of occasions, namely for Germany 2006 and Brazil 2014 when they suffered defeat in the final round of qualifying.

They feature some talented players among their ranks, including Manchester City defender Abdukodir Khusanov - who is the first Uzbek player to play in the Premier League.