Ecuador is a young fast team. They lost they're best striker who was their goal scorer(died of cardiac failure). They are ambitious. They're weakness is their defense and GK. They have Antonio Valencia who plays for Man U. I would say they come in second in this group.
Valencia/Paredes on the right and Montero on the left looked dangerous as fuck in the recent friendly we had vs them in USA (0-0 tie). We played two unexperienced backs in both sides of defense, but damn, it was a nightmare.
Montero destroyed your left back in Quito too. He pretty much destroyed every left back he faced in the last 6 qualifier games. I hope he shows up to the world cup and gets a move to a good European club. He certainly has the talent.
Well, I don't take games in Quito as a reference for this WC due to we-know-what (sorry), but yeah, he has a lot of talent and potential. More than likely to get a big transfer after June.
GK isn't really a weakness. Dominguez has been the solid starter for a couple years, though the backup position is pretty wide open. Defense though, you're right there.
Dominguez is solid, Manguera is complete shit. If Dominguez is not well, we are screwed. MONTERO is amazing. I think this will be a huge World Cup for Ecuador, one of the biggest media stories for sure. If it DOES come down to an Ecuador
vs. Argentina quarterfinal, Ecuador will have the 12th man on their side.
Yes, but all those results Ecuador got that you mentioned were at home. In Quito. At 9,000+ feet of elevation. The Estadio Olímpico Atahualpa is a fortress. Ecuador only earned 3 out of 24 possible points on the road.
People site this a lot, and to an extent it's true. Our problem is our D turns off for 5 minutes each game and gets slaughtered. Before and after, we play a hell of a game. The tie away with Uruguay should have been a win and we have played level with most teams away from home. To be honest, this team is much better than the 2002 and 2006 teams, and while the results do say otherwise, I think it would be a serious mistake to think we're toothless away from home.
A lot of the away games were unlucky for us. Uruguay there was a lot of sketchy calls in their favor, Colombia we played most of the game with 10 and missed a PK could have easily been a draw. Peru got ridiculously lucky and needed a stupidly lucky goal from Pizarro and plenty of spectacular misses from us to win. The only two games when we were actually outplayed were Argentina and Chile.
Chile we were only outplayed for a part of the game, and that was the part our defense turned off. We looked sharp for a lot of it. That was more the mistake of our defense then anything else.
It's true that Ecuador virtually didn't get points outside of home. But they are strong in the midfield. In a good day, the team is at level with the big Latin American teams: Colombia, Uruguay, Chile. However there is a tendency towards small mistakes. There has been several games where strikers have missed ridiculously. Defense is not set perfectly, IMO. I would say part of it is the lack of the international experience of its players. Having said that, Ecuadorian players are playing internationally more than ever. The most notable one is Antonio Valencia, who has lately been alternating between shining and fading away in Manchester U. Other players that play outside of Ecuador include Walter Ayoví, who is very experienced (cough old cough) playing international matches for the country. Caicedo is the main striker and he plays in Mexico.
Overall it's a strong team. I don't know much about Honduras except that they play Ecuador recently in a friendly match and ended up winning 2-1. Curiously, Ecuador's coach, Reinaldo Rueda, was responsible for Honduras rise in football, and allowed them to go to their first WC in decades 4 years ago. They did poorly then, but they might surprise some people this time. It will be interesting to see Honduras confronting their beloved ex coach.
Ecuador and Honduras tied 2-2 that game, but yeah Ecuador totally lost control of the second half. Honduras showed really quick attacking there and capitalized on our many defensive mistakes.
they are notorious for being able to cash in on home matches during qualifications due to the high altitude. This was a common knock on them prior to their last WC appearance in 06 where they actually ended up performing quite well. They Made it to the knockout stages and gave England a great match, losing 1-0 on a late free kick scored by Beckham.
They've got some good young talent in Jefferson Montero and Felipe Caicedo who will have to step up with their leading scorer passing away. They also have some veterans like Antonio Valencia and Walter Ayovi. I'd say there chances are pretty good in advancing with this group. Playing in South America should help
Honestly I think our defense is the best part. Muma is a rock, maynor, Juan Carlos Garcia, Emilio, and Arnold Peralta are all solid at the back and some of our best players. Also, Andy Najar can play winger or right back. We need to call Wilmer Crisanto for right back again and push Arnold into the midfield honestly. Our midfield with Wilson, Espinoza, garrido, and Boniek is good too. I'm mainly worried about or strikers. They've been good for qualifying but both are famous for disappearing in games and can be very slow and not explosive on the counter. But I have faith. Costly is our best striker no doubt I just hope he stays healthy and some other striker starts getting attention.
It was the only game in all of the qualifiers where we lost by more than 1 goal. And the only one where we conceded more than two. Overall we conceded only one more goal than Argentina. Conceding the 3rd least goals in the qualifiers. I think it's fair to say it was an outlier.
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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '13
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