Gustavo Alfaro and the Ecuador National Team will seek this Thursday to get even closer to their classification by Qatar World Cup, of course they will not have it easy at all: they will be local to nothing less than the undefeated and already classified Brazil, from 18 at the Rodrigo Paz Delgado stadium, in Quito, with TyC Sports televising.
the tricolor, third with 23 units with four days to go, must add six points in this double round of Qualifying (on Tuesday he visits Peru) to make sure he returns to a World Cup and not depend on any other results. As their pursuers are tight (Colombia and Peru with 17, Chile and Uruguay with 16, Bolivia with 15 and Paraguay with 13), the combination of results that may or may not favor Ecuador in case of not adding six, is wide.
Ecuador, which will play without an audience by government order, qualified three times in its history for World Cups: Korea-Japan 2002 (eliminated in the first phase; 0-2 with Italy, 1-2 with Mexico and 1-0 with Croatia), Germany 2006 (second in groups after adding a 2-0 to Poland, 3-0 to Costa Rica and 0-3 to Germany; defeat in the round of 16 0-1 against England) and Brazil 2014 (Start in the first phase; 1-2 with Switzerland, 2-1 with Honduras and 0-0 with France).
In the second shift of the day, meanwhile, Paraguay will face Uruguay from 8:00 p.m. at the General Pablo Rojas, in Asunción (transmits DeporTV). For the locals, led by the Barros Schelotto twins, there is no longer any margin of error: second to last with 13 points, product of 2 wins, 7 draws and 5 losses.
La Celeste, meanwhile, will have the Debut on the bench of former striker Diego Alonso, replacing Maestro Tabárez, who ended a historical cycle of 15 years in the eastern team. With Luis Suárez and Edinson Cavani back in attack, Uruguay (seventh with 16 units) will start a string of “accessible” meetings against the majority of direct rivals to get into the contest that he knew how to win in 1930 and 1950: after visiting Asunción, he will be local to Venezuela and Peru, and will close with Chile as a visitor.
The day will be closed by Chile and Argentina, starting at 9:15 p.m., while the date 15 will continue on Friday with the clashes between Colombia and Peru, and Venezuela -with the debut of José Pekerman- vs. Bolivia.
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