Gustavo Alfaro’s team had been one of the revelations of Qatar 2022, after staying with the opening game (2-0 against the host) and taking a 1-1 victory over the Netherlands on the second date and even deserving something more than the oranges in that game. With the good harvest of his first two presentations, Ecuador was enough to add a draw this Tuesday against Senegal to get into the round of 16 final and repeat the feat of the Tri in Germany 2006, when he passed the stage and recorded his best performance ever in World Cups.
But all the good that Ecuador did in the first games, they forgot against the Senegalese. It was a 2-1 defeat against the African champion and classification to the second round for the team that prevailed with goals from Ismaila Sarr, from a penalty, and the center-back Kalidou Koulibaly.
Ecuador came out of the game as if asleep or, in any case, Senegal was very awake. Already in the third minute of play, the team led by Aliou Cissé -the one with the spectacular look in the cap and dreadlocks- had the first danger with a very clear arrival from Idrissa Gana Gueye, who finished off next to the post of the Argentine Hernan Galindez.
Senegal went on and on attacking against an Ecuador that could not find a way around the attacks from outside the Africans and that did not show the intensity that characterizes Alfaro’s teams. But when it seemed that La Tri had managed to control her rival, at the same time tired from the initial push, the former Talleres Piero Hincapié crossed the indomitable Ismaila Sarr inside the area and the Watford forward of the English Second Division changed it for a goal after leaving GalÃndez kneeling in the penalty.
Alfaro tried to wake up his team in the locker room and also at the start of the second half with two changes. but the team He could never show his best version, the one that has Pervis Estupiñán causing destruction on the left wing and the scorer Enner Valencia breaking records (he leaves with three goals in the Cup).
It was then through the set piece that Ecuador had its best chances and even then the tie arrived, at minute 67, with a very poor defensive task from Senegal -a man at the near post enabled everyone- in a corner center that ended with Moisés Caicedo pushing her under the arch.
The joy -nor the temporary classification- did not last for Ecuador since at 70 the ones who made a mistake in a stopped ball were the South Americans. Enner Valencia wanted to clear a center and ended up enabling Koulibalythe Chelsea player and great Senegalese captain, who made it 2-1 and the final pass for his team to the round of 16, as in 2002, when they reached the quarterfinals (in their other participation, in 2018, they did not go beyond group stage).
For those of Alfaro, who had made history by getting Ecuador into their fourth World Cup, much little taste and not even an agonizing goal chance to “hunt for the impossible utopia”, as the book that the Rafaelino took out after qualifying for Qatar is titled. More true than ever.