An explosion of yellow in New Jersey. Players on their knees in tears and a coach throwing himself in to the arms of the crowd to celebrate. Ecuador are in to the last 32 of this fabulous World Cup.
Sebastian Beccacece’s team hadn’t scored a goal at this tournament before this meeting with a German team that had won its last eleven games. So this was an all or nothing afternoon at the MetLife. A goal down within two minutes, Ecuador somehow pulled it around and will continue their journey through America, Mexico and Canada.
They deserved it, too. In stark contrast to Scotland’s sit back and hope approach against Brazil a day earlier, Beccacece and his players decided they were not going to die wondering.
Behind to a controversial Leroy Sane goal right at the start, Ecuador gathered themselves and outplayed Julian Nagelsmann’s team from that point on.
Ivan Angulo smashed in an equaliser from 20 yards to give his team hope in the ninth minute and after they survived a penalty scare – overturned by VAR – at the start of the second half they went hunting for glory, finding it when Gonzalo Plata turned in a flick on from a corner with thirteen minutes to go.
Fair play to Germany. This was a dead rubber to them but that unbeaten run clearly meant something. They came hard in search for late parity but couldn’t find it and the scenes at full-time were quite marvellous.
There was an explosion of yellow in New Jersey as Ecuador beat Germany to qualify for the World Cup knockout phase
Gonazalo Plata won it for the Ecuadorians with a close-range finish from a corner
Nagelsmann had chosen a strong side and must have thought it was all going to be rather straight forward as his team took the lead almost immediately.
Germany advanced down the left and when Aleksandar Pavlovic raised his foot to control the ball he did so before making contact with the forehead of his opponent, Pedro Vite.
When referee Tori Penso didn’t intervene, Florian Wirtz moved the loose ball swiftly on to Sane who swept it in to the goalkeeper’s bottom right hand corner with complete confidence.
VAR has kept a welcome distance from much of what has gone on in this tournament but here it seemed strange that the off-field officials didn’t get involved. The offence seemed quite clear.
Ecuador were to benefit from a VAR intervention later but for now they had damage to repair and to their credit they managed to do so quickly as Angulo – who plays his football in the MLS for Orlando City – advanced through the middle to beat Manuel Neuer from 20 yards with a powerful shot.
It was a fine finish but Germany had been complicit in the build up as Wirtz and then Felix Nmecah lost induvial duels.
It was clear they were a much better side than their opening two results had suggested. Germany found themselves in retreat as their opponent found space in the middle third of the field.
When Germany did break forward, they looked dangerous and used the width of this vast surface to find space. Wirtz was a little frustrating, too often wanting more time than there was available to him. He tended to look a lot like that for much of his debut Premier League season with Liverpool.
A cross from German left-back Joshua Kimmich did threaten to unlock the Ecuadorian defence in the 25th minute and the headed chance for Kai Havertz was a decent one. The ensuing effort was straight at Ecuador goalkeeper Hernan Galindez.
Julian Nagelsmann’s Germans were outplayed after going 1-0 up in the first-half
Ecuador advance to the Round of 32, where they could come up against England
The early moments of the second period seemed set to deliver Havertz a goal on a plate only for VAR to intervene with good effect.
The two-footed scissor tackle on Havertz from Jole Ordonez was reckless and referee Penso was quick to award a penalty. But VAR had identified a foul by Sane on Vite on the build-up and, after a look at the pitch side monitor, the referee quite rightly awarded a free-kick to Ecuador.
Into the final half hour and Nagelsmann sought to inject some inspiration in to his team by sending on Deniz Undav, scorer of three goals from the substitutes bench at this World Cup so far.
His counterpart Beccacece also made changes, attempting to whip up the crowd as he did so. Beccacece – from Argentina – knew that a low scoring draw would eliminate his team.
As such he had no choice but to urge his players forward and though a big chance went begging with 20 minutes left when a mix up between Neuer and Jonathan Tah presented Plata with a chance he couldn’t take, the big moment arrived for the 25-year-old a few minutes later.
Germany went after the game and seven minutes of added time jangled Ecuadorian nerves, particularly when Undav drove one shot in to the side netting.
But the South Americans hung on. Bedlam in New Jersey – and Ecuador could face England in the Round of 32.
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