WILLEMSTAD (DA) — Every national team has an anthem. A few earn something else: a song that feels like home, sounds like belief, and follows the players like a flag.
For Curaçao, that soundtrack is “Bluewave,” a kompa track by Jeon, produced by Steve Andreas. It started as a simple request. It grew into a rallying cry. Over time, it helped turn “Bluewave” into a nickname supporters use for the national team itself.
One text message lit the fuse
The moment has a timestamp: May 9, 2025 at 1:19 p.m. Curaçao midfielder Juninho Bacuna texted Jeon with one mission.
According to Jeon, Bacuna wrote that the team asked if he knew someone who could create a song for their upcoming presentation in June tied to the 2025 Gold Cup build-up. Bacuna told Jeon he had already told the team he could ask him, if Jeon wanted it, so Curaçao could have a theme song to carry into the tournament.
Bacuna added another detail that made it urgent: the plan was to premiere the song on June 6 before Curaçao took the field for its Gold Cup send-off match at home.
Jeon replied a couple of hours later: “Sure, my brother.” He asked for the ingredients, keywords, rhythm, a reference track, and promised to make it “next level.”
Bacuna answered that the team liked Jeon’s song “Caya ta Papia.” He sent the keywords: Bluewave, Gold Cup, Road to World Cup, plus a request that players’ names be worked into the record.
That exchange carried the island’s tone: direct, proud, and full of purpose. Curaçao didn’t want background music. Curaçao wanted a sound that belonged to the team.
It didn’t peak at the Gold Cup. It peaked when the dream did
Not every football song hits on release. A song needs a moment. It needs meaning.
That’s how “Bluewave” moved through the public. It didn’t become a runaway hit during the Gold Cup itself. But it picked up during Curaçao’s World Cup qualification stretch and then surged after Curaçao qualified for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, when the island’s biggest football dream became real and the world suddenly had to learn Curaçao’s name.
Supporters didn’t just play “Bluewave.” They claimed it. They treated it like part of the kit, something you don’t leave behind when the stakes rise.
A chorus built on pride, then a switch into match-day fire
“Bluewave” hits like a pep talk and a prayer in the same breath, delivered in Papiamentu, the local language spoken in Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire.
The lyrics frame the island as small but ambitious, “from small, the dreams are big,” and repeat a line that lands like a dedication to sacrifice and progress: “Mom, look how far we’ve come.” It salutes the families behind the players and the people who carried hope before the world paid attention.
Then the track flips into match mode. It praises the goalkeeper, celebrates shots and goals, and name-checks players like a rapid play-by-play. It pulls the team off the screen and puts them right next to you, like family.
That’s where the title becomes bigger than a song name. “Bluewave” becomes the feeling of team and supporters moving as one in Curaçao’s colors, with “wanta bo kurpa” pushing everyone to lock in and pay attention.
Jeon’s pledge to give back
As the song spread, Jeon also tied “Bluewave” to something practical.
He pledged to give back to Curaçao the proceeds from streaming “Bluewave” on platforms such as YouTube, Spotify and iTunes, to help buy materials so children can keep practicing the sport of football.
Oranje and the power of a football identity
Curaçao’s “Bluewave” fits a global pattern: teams don’t always choose their unofficial anthems. Crowds do.
The Netherlands offers a clear example of how football identity can travel. The Dutch are known worldwide as Oranje, a nickname that instantly signals color, pride and a match-day look that can fill entire streets. Over time, Dutch supporters have also turned certain songs into part of national-team life, music that becomes shorthand for the party, the passion and the belief that follow the team from city to city.
That’s the lane Curaçao is stepping into now. When a nickname sticks and a song sticks with it, people don’t just watch the team. They feel it.
The world runs on nicknames
Nicknames are football’s shorthand. They turn a national team into a story you can say in one breath. Some come from crests and history, some from colors, some from culture. All of them are meant to travel.
Here are a few of the most recognized names in the sport:
- Brazil: Seleção or Canarinho
- Argentina: La Albiceleste
- Uruguay: La Celeste
- Germany: Die Mannschaft
- Spain: La Roja
- France: Les Bleus
- Italy: Gli Azzurri
- Portugal: A Seleção
- Belgium: the Red Devils
- England: the Three Lions
- Scotland: the Tartan Army
- Mexico: El Tri
- United States: the Yanks
- Cameroon: the Indomitable Lions
- Nigeria: the Super Eagles
- Ghana: the Black Stars
- Japan: the Samurai Blue
- South Korea: the Taegeuk Warriors
- Australia: the Socceroos
- New Zealand: the All Whites
Curaçao’s story is that it added something new to the list, not by committee, but by momentum. A nickname that sounds like movement, and a song that gives it a pulse.
Other nations have their songs, too
Curaçao’s rise with “Bluewave” sits alongside other famous unofficial team songs that became inseparable from national teams during big moments. England has “Three Lions.” Italy’s 2006 era is often tied to “Seven Nation Army.” Scotland’s celebrations latched onto “Yes Sir, I Can Boogie.” Argentina’s recent World Cup run had “Muchachos…”.
Different languages. Different rhythms. Same truth: when a song captures the right emotion at the right time, it stops being just a track and starts being a nation’s voice.
Curaçao’s moment, captured in music
A player sent a text. An artist answered. A kompa beat turned into belief.
That’s the “Bluewave” story: not a slogan someone forced into the culture, but a song that found its moment when Curaçao found its place.
And now, when supporters say Bluewave, they don’t just mean the color of the shirt.
They mean the feeling of an island standing tall, and the sound of Curaçao stepping onto football’s biggest stage together.