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Football is widely regarded as the king of sports and FIFA World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the World by some distance, for the way it attracts attention from each and every corner of the World.
The peculiar thing about football World Cup is that it also attracts huge attention from those who don't follow club football regularly.
In order to participate in the quadrennial tournament, national teams need to play in the cut-throat qualification round. Even countries with a lot of people and money, great sports legacy, and a huge chunk of Olympic medals find it hard to make it to the tournament. Case in point are China and USA.
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Ironically, India, a country with more than 1.3 billion people, couldn't even pass through the first round of FIFA World Cup qualification. That tells a lot about the ground reality and competitive nature of the tournament.
Here, we will peek through top 5 lowest-populated nations to make it to Russia.
#5 Denmark
Denmark won 1992 Euros and 1995 Confederations Cup. As far as football history in the country is concerned, they have won 3 silver Olympic medals in 1908,1912, and 1960 Olympics and a bronze model in 1948 Olympic. The reason why they took so long to lift a trophy again is because of an interesting development.
Earlier, Denmark had a strange rule of allowing only amateur footballers to compete for the national team.This rule plagued the performance of national team substantially. Finally, this rule was scrapped by Danish Football Association in 1971, allowing professional footballers to compete for the national team. This decision rejuvenated the national team as they qualified for 1986 World Cup and subsequently won Euro and Confederations Cup.
Now, Danish players have come a long way excelling both in the club and country level. Currently, In Denmark, one out of 15 people is a footballer plying their trade in more than 1600 clubs.
With 5.7 million inhabitants, the Scandinavian nation is one of the happiest countries in the World. However, their happiness may skyrocket if Denmark performed well in the World Cup. Drawn with France, Australia and Peru in group C, Denmark will leave no stone unturned to create a big upset in World Cup vying for a great finish. Denmark start their campaign against Peru on 16th June in Saransk.
#4 Costa Rica
Having a population of 4.8 million people, Costa Rica is the most successful football team in Central America, having won 3 CONCACAF Gold Cups and 8 Copa Centro Americana. Despite being drawn into a group of death in World Cup 2014 that consisted of England, Italy and Uruguay, Costa Rica topped the group and reached into quarterfinals where they were eliminated by the Netherlands in a penalty shootout.
Despite its negligible population, Costa Rica is one of the largest exporters of the professional footballers, especially to Mexico and Europe. In addition to that, Liga FPD, the top division football league of the country, is 2nd strongest league within the Central and North America, only behind to Mexico's Liga MX.
This time Costa Rica is drawn into group E consisting of Brazil, Switzerland and Serbia. Costa Rica will strive to upgrade their performance from Brazil. They will take their legacy forward when they take on Serbia on 17th June in Samara.
#3 Panama
Panama, a country with 4 million people, broke the hearts of 322 million Americans when they qualified for World Cup at USA's expense. Panama owe a certain part of their accomplishment to another tiny Caribbean nation i.e. Trinidad and Tobago for the way they made the US bite the dust on the final day of the campaign.
Panama have been drawn alongside England, Belgium and Tunisia. They need to display outstanding football in order to advance to the knockout stage when they start their first World Cup campaign by facing the mighty Belgium on 18th June in Sochi.
For a team who defied the odds and qualified for the World Cup, you can't really rule anything out when the group stages begin as they really have nothing to lose.
#2 Uruguay
The South American country with a population around 3.44 million is a football giant with an illustrious history. Considering the quality players they have, though, it would have been a surprise had they not made it to Russia.
Uruguay have won the World Cup twice, both times thrashing fellow South American opponents Argentina and Brazil. In fact, they are the smallest country to clinch a World Cup in terms of population when they won it in 1930; their population was 1.75 million.
They have also won the Copa America a record 15 times. In addition to that, they won two Olympic gold before the introduction of FIFA World Cup in 1930. To sum up, Uruguay national team has won more international tournaments than any other country.
Uruguay have been drawn into group A, consisting of hosts Russia, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and it is expected that they will march into the later stage of the tournament. They'll play their first game against Egypt on 15th June in Yekaterinburg.
#1 Iceland
With 334k inhabitants in the country, Iceland took the world by storm when they reached into quarterfinals of Euros a couple of years back, their first major tournament in international football. They upset England in the round of 16.
The tiny island nation have continued to make progress as they qualified for the World Cup 2018, becoming the smallest country, in terms of population, to do so. The qualification will get rid of the bad memories they had when they went close but couldn't make it to the 2014 World Cup.
The success story of Iceland traced back to its outstanding coaching system on the grassroots level. One in every 500 Icelanders is a UEFA-qualified coach. All schools in the country have, at least, five-a-side football team at their disposal, as the training starts from as young as 6 years-old preparing them to be good enough to fight at the highest level. Apart from that, Iceland has 20,000 footballers playing in the different levels of the country's football hierarchy.
Iceland have been drawn into group D in the World Cup, along with Argentina, Nigeria and Croatia. Icelanders will yearn for a major upset when they take on Messi and co. on 16th June in Moscow.
