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With just a month until the World Cup, there will be a change at the helm for Curacao’s national team as manager Fred Rutten stepped down on Monday. The Federashon Futbòl Kòrsou (FFK) revealed its replacement at the helm on Tuesday morning, and it’s the return of a familiar face. The manager who got them here, Dick Advocaat, will oversee the Blue Wave during the World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

After the announcement Blue Wave players Eloy Room and Jurgen Locadia spoke about how they’re ready to put the drama behind them and focus on playing in the World Cup as the clock ticks down. On the bright side, going back to Advocaat means that they don’t have to learn new tactics in such a short time, but it has been a tough situation to deal with.

“As a player, I don’t even care who is going to lead us to the World Cup or be on the World Cup, because of course, Dick Advocaat led us there and was on this journey,” Locadia stated to CBS Sports. “He made a decision to step down, which we all respected, we got a new head coach, and circumstances made him step down. In my opinion, it doesn’t even matter who the coach is, I think the players on the pitch and on the bench, they have to deliver something. Whereas Dick Advocaat, that’s not the most important component.”

Advocaat stepped down shortly after qualifying for the World Cup in November due to his daughter’s health, but is in a place where he can now lead the squad due to improvements in her condition. It was not a premeditated decision to turn to Advocaat, FFK president Gilbert Martina. At 78, Advocaat will become the oldest manager to ever lead a squad in the World Cup, and he’ll also become the first to do so with three different countries, with Curacao now joining the Netherlands, which he managed during the 1994 World Cup in the United States and South Korea during the 2006 World Cup in Germany, as teams that he has managed in the tournament.

That experience will be important for Curacao’s first ever World Cup in a region that they’re familiar with, being a Concacaf nation.

Room echoed Locadia’s call for the need to focus at this stage. As Curacao’s most capped player, earning his first appearance with the Blue Wave in 2015 against Cuba, Room is someone who has been through it all with the island.

“A lot of things have been going on in the past few days, but I think the most important thing is we need to make sure we can focus now on the World Cup, you know? Because it’s like a month away, and obviously, it was a difficult situation,” Room stated. “We got a new coach [Rutten], and then, the old coach [Advocaat], there were rumors already that he wants to come back, but it’s not easy for both sides. I think, like the most important thing for us as players is that we need to focus on the World Cup.” 

It’s a strange situation for all parties involved, as speaking to CBS Sports in March, Martina described Rutten taking the helm as “the circle of life” because he played a part in how Advocaat got the role in 2023. The FFK did praise Rutten’s professionalism and leadership on the way out in a statement.

“In June 2023, I met with Rutten, and he came back after two weeks and stated, ‘I discussed it with the queen at home and my daughter and they stated dad not yet, you’re not healthy mentally and physically, ‘ and because he had just come from a medical procedure and he stated ‘Gilbert, if I can advise you of one name, it’s Dick Advocaat,'” Martina stated about the process of intially getting Advocaat on board.

The rest is literally history as Advocaat has led the team to become the smallest nation to qualify for the World Cup at a population of about 158,000 people. Leaning on dual national recruitment through a door that was opened by Patrick Kluivert during his time as manager is part of what got them to this point. Now, the coach responsible for the qualification is back, and it’s time to get down to business. Both players described what transpired over the last week as, “unnecessary drama,” and they’re happy to put it behind them with the World Cup looming.

Rutten oversaw two matches as head coach of the nation, losses to Australia and China, where the team conceded seven goals while scoring one. The Blue Wave aren’t a team expected to pull up any trees at the World Cup, but reportedly the tactics employed during those matches led to a call for change from the players as the World Cup is rapidly approaching. Placed in group E alongside, Germany, the Ivory Coast, and Ecuador, it will be a tall task for Curacoo to make it out of the group, but with eight third-placed teams making the newly minted round of 32, there is a chance that they can make the knockouts if they can spring upsets. After being unbeaten in Concacaf qualifying and already defying the odds once,s there’s no reason that they can’t do so yet again.