¡¡¡ Patada criminal !!!

My Facebook feed gives me all the minutest updates about the Ecuadorian national soccer team. As it should. … What’s remarkable is how these updates are titled. I’m reminded of the headlines of El Extra.

For example, Gabriel Achilier recently earned a red card in the Mexican league. The headline:

#LoÚltimo ¡¡QUÉ IMPRUDENCIA!!

¡¡PATADA CRIMINAL DE ACHILIER A UN RIVAL!! LO MANDARON A LAS DUCHAS … PERO QUÉ PATAZO …

MIRA EL VIDEO …

(In fact, it wasn’t a very serious foul.)

Of course, these days, most of the updates are concerned with the preparations for Ecuador’s last two World Cup qualifiers. (More precisely: these will be our last two qualifiers if we don’t finish in fifth place in South America; should we finish fifth, there would follow a two-game series against New Zealand.) Gustavo Quinteros, our manager, has been sacked. His replacement, Jorge Célico, has abandoned several regular players (e.g., Christian Noboa) and seen others abruptly retire (e.g., Felipe Caicedo). In their stead, he’s convoking rookies. I’m not necessarily in favor of dropping Noboa, but I welcome the influx of new talent. The old team had gotten far too predictable. The new players won’t have been scouted very thoroughly by our opponents.

Our next game, away to Chile, is on October 5 – Karin’s birthday. Karin isn’t very eager about this. I’ve tended to be sad on game days, lately.

UPDATE: Karin’s birthday is October 3, not October 5.

I knew that.

Thank you Uruguay, thanks Bolivia

… for defeating Paraguay and Chile, respectively, which is all that’s keeping Ecuador in the hunt. The Venezuelans helped us, too, drawing with Argentina in Buenos Aires.

(I feel like Alanis Morissette in her “Thank U India” video: chastened and nude.)

No thanks to ourselves. Last night, the Peruvians defeated us in Quito. We were bad.

It’s hard to know what, or whom, to blame. Our players? They’d do better if things weren’t so dire. Our coach? Certainly, his tactics are bankrupt, or else they aren’t suited to our personnel; but I’m not sure what tactics to suggest instead. The groundskeeping? That was a problem last night. The grass was cut short to make the ball roll quickly. But our players kept failing to control the ball.

The altitude? Last night, it didn’t help us. I think Peru may have used more “highland” players than we used.

I’d be in utter despair – I was all through the night – except that Argentina and Chile are playing badly, too, and they’re our closest qualifying rivals, and they’re whom we will play against in our last two games. I thought the Peruvians would be easier to beat, but now I’m not so sure. The Argentinians have looked tepid under all three of their world-class coaches. And the Chileans, well, they’re a disaster. And so are we. The three teams are punch-drunk and knocked down. Whoever can stand up just a little will be admitted to the World Cup.

Our demise

The best moment of the Copa América occurred at the end of the group stage. Raúl Ruidíaz scored with his hand, allowing Peru to knock out Brazil.

The Uruguayans also were KO’d during the group stage.

In last night’s quarterfinal, we Ecuadorians were beaten by the U.S. (as foretold in Ecclesiastes 9:11). To their credit the gringos did what they set out to do, which was to station nearly all of their players close to their own box.

(Remarkably, the gringos were able to get away with doing this at home. Their fans were even willing to applaud them for doing it.)

Still, we created plenty of chances. Most of them were wasted by Énner Valencia. We also earned a few set-pieces, one of which we converted (set-pieces are crucial when the other team is stationing nearly all of its players close to the box). But we deserved to have more free kicks than the referee gave us, as well as at least one penalty kick. After one especially bad no-call, Coach Quinteros justly insulted the referee’s mother.

In the game’s last minutes we performed an experiment. Our left-back, Walter Ayoví, moved into the center of the field, where he carved up the U.S. with his passing. The Argentinian commentators were in awe. “Walter Ayoví with your 37 years, we love you!” they exclaimed after the game ended.