At least in the buildup to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, much of the anticipation was over the sheer star power coming to Kansas City.

We weren’t merely providing four base camps in the area, but luring here a lustrous three of the top seven in FIFA’s current rankings: defending World Cup champion Argentina, England and The Netherlands — along with Algeria (29th) in Lawrence.

We weren’t just allocated six games at “Kansas City Stadium” (Arrowhead), but had bookends of a July 11 quarterfinal and Argentina and Algeria playing Tuesday in a first game further enlivened by their newfound local engagements.

Amplified by Lionel Messi’s hat trick and a pulsating crowd, small wonder Argentina’s 3-0 win over Algeria instantly became one of the most iconic scenes ever to unfold in this stadium.

It was a singular night in so many ways, all the more significant for the full-circle dynamic of realizing the vision of late Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt, who was instrumental in the rise of soccer in the USA.

But with all that jammed into Tuesday, it was natural to expect something quite less on Saturday when Ecuador (30th in the world) took on Curaçao — the smallest nation ever to play in a World Cup, ranked 81st and a 7-1 loser in its opening game to Germany.

CuraçaoC to some was the cuddly “Cool Runnings” Jamaican bobsled team of this World Cup, but it was just as easy to think of it as the Washington Generals or an NCAA Tournament No. 16 seed.

Heck, even 78-year-old coach Dick Advocaat, the oldest man ever to coach a World Cup game, on Friday playfully suggested Curaçao’s best path to victory would be if Ecuador was down four players.

For all else this was going to be about, though, Kansas City organizers — and all of us, when you get right down to it — wanted the experience here to be about surprise and delight.

And unless you’re an Ecuador fan, sorry about everything, in those respects it will be hard to eclipse what happened Saturday.

To borrow from the storied Harvard Crimson headline about a tie with Yale, well, Curaçao beat Ecuador 0-0.

You could say 0-0 was about nothing, but, in fact, it was everything before an announced crowd of 68,598 ... just a few hundred below the soccer capacity.

Surprise and delight, indeed.

Instead of this becoming a humdrum drubbing and even fodder to question expanding the World Cup field from 32 to 48, it developed into testimony as to why the change was worthwhile.

More significantly, it reaffirmed the sheer power of sport and the human spirit.

That was best encapsulated in the form of Curaçao’s transcendent goalkeeper Eloy Room, whose surname belied what Ecuador found behind him.

Starting with a tone-setting marvel early, Room contorted and unfurled himself to 15 saves — including several other stupefying ones.

While that was one fewer than U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard’s World Cup record, Room’s mesmerizing performance was more impactful because Team USA lost that 2014 game 2-1 to Belgium.

And momentous enough to merit him a post-match kiss from Queen Máxima of The Netherlands, who along with King Willem-Alexander attended in honor of the autonomous constituent country within the Dutch Kingdom.

No doubt he’ll have a certain place in history for the country.

“I think I need a statue in Curaçao,” Room said afterward.

He was joking, but … why not?

Call it recency bias, but his performance conjured some of the most jaw-dropping athletic performances I’d ever been privileged to cover in person.

If only for a night, it was the stuff of Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt and Simone Biles, to name a few, at various Olympics. Closer to home, Mahomes Magic.

And it made me think of that perfect scene in the movie “Vision Quest,” summed up in the speech Elmo gives about watching Pelé play soccer.

“I don’t know nothin’ about Pelé. … Next thing I know, he jumps up in the air and flips into a somersault and kicks the ball in. Upside down and backwards. ... Everybody’s screaming in Spanish. I’m here, sitting alone in my room, and I start crying. …

“Because another human being, a species which I happen to belong to, could kick a ball and lift himself and the rest of us (sad) human beings up to a better place to be. If only for a minute.”

That movie is one of former Sporting KC coach Peter Vermes’ favorites, and we spoke about it in the context of Messi a couple years ago.

But as much as it speaks to the joy and wonder of a compelling individual, it’s really just as apt when it comes to a collective feat we can’t comprehend … but still can appreciate.

“Coming from nothing,” reminded Advocaat, referring to sub-par facilities and other obstacles coming from the island of 158,000 (which Kansas City organizers have liked comparing themselves to as the smallest of the 16 2026 World Cup host cities).

Like the catchphrase to the Wide World of Sports broadcast that first enthralled Hunt with the World Cup, this was the essence of the thrill of victory contrasting, alas, with the agony of defeat.

Or more like the fury of failure in the case of disgruntled Ecuador fans in the upper deck of Arrowhead extending their middle fingers to the team as it left the field after being shutout for a second straight World Cup game.

The anger reminded me of the Moroccan media question to legendary runner Hicham El Guerrouj when he agonizingly fell short at the 2000 Sydney Olympics:

How does it feel, he was asked, to let down 30 million people?

In this case, at least Ecuador only has a population of 18 million — some 114 times the population of Curaçao.

But the never-ending story of Saturday will be that of Curaçao, which also will live prominently in the mosaic of the World Cup experience in Kansas City — an experience, incidentally, that on Saturday included a vastly improved experience getting in and out of the stadium.

As he spoke about the support of fans in Curaçao, Room said, “It gives us wings.”

Just like the Blue Wave gave us all.

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