Curacao goalkeeper Eloy Room wrote his name into World Cup history by making 15 saves to earn the tiny Caribbean nation their first ever point at the tournament with a 0-0 draw against Ecuador.
Room, 37, broke the record for the most saves in a 90-minute World Cup match since records began in 1966. Only the USA’s Tim Howard has made more stops in a World Cup game, with 16 in an extra-time defeat to Belgium in 2014.
Curacao is home to just 156,000 people, making them the smallest country to compete at the World Cup, and Room is the latest veteran goalkeeper to make his mark at the tournament following the performance of Cape Verde’s Vozinha in the 0-0 draw against Spain.
“I think I need a statue in Curacao now,” Room said. His Instagram is also set to explode, with the goalkeeper gaining more than 600,000 new followers in the hours after his performance. “For me as a goalkeeper, this is almost a perfect game,” he added.
Born in the Netherlands, near the German border, Room spent the majority of his career in Dutch football. He made his debut for Curacao in 2015, after being convinced to join the team by Patrick Kluivert, the former Netherlands international who was in charge of Curacao at the time. Room was eligible to play for Curacao through his father.
He made his debut for Curacao in 2015 and starred in a 2019 Gold Cup victory over Honduras, the island’s first at the the tournament. After spells with Vitesse in the Netherlands and Cercle Brugge in Belgium, he joined Miami FC in the USL Championship as a free agent in January 2026.
The previous November, Room kept a clean sheet as the Blue Wave drew 0-0 with Jamaica to qualify for the World Cup for the first time. Led by former Netherlands manager Dick Advocaat, Curacao made their World Cup debut against Germany but lost 7-1 in their opening game of Group E.
That may make Curacao’s resilient performance against Ecuador even more impressive. Ecuador still managed 27 shots, racking up an xG of 3.05, but Room was there when it counted. His standout saves included a couple of close-range attempts from Enner Valencia and shots from Moises Caicedo and John Yeboah from distance.
“Maybe Germany came too early,” Advocaat said. “That day they were simply out of our league, but today the team was standing as it should have been standing. They were fighting like lions and then you see what you can achieve against a team that’s playing on a very high level with very high individual levels of the players.”
Curacao’s historic display in Kansas City was witnessed by the Netherlands’ King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima, after they had been in Houston to watch the Netherlands’ victory over Sweden earlier in the day. Curacao is an autonomous constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Now, perhaps, Curacao has new royalty in a 37-year-old goalkeeper who spent much of his career as a back-up in the Netherlands. “The first save, the tone was put in place, also for the team. It gave me confidence and I grew, we all grew, this was a team effort,” he said. “We’ve been fighting, fighting up to the last minute. Earning a point this way for Curacao is absolutely great.”
