Rio de Janeiro: Ecuador became the only South American country to crash out of the World Cup before the second round after they played out a goalless draw with France in Group ‘E’ here on Wednesday. A convincing win for Switzerland over Honduras, played simultaneously at Manaus, shut the door on Reinaldo Rueda’s team.
A red card to Antonio Valencia in the 50th minute aggravated Ecuador’s plight but they had been decidedly poor even with 11 on the field. Expectedly, France topped the group with seven points but their performance wasn’t worthy of a team being spoken of as dark horses for the title. The official attendance at the Maracana was 73,749. It would be safe to assume none of them would have returned home with great memories because the match was totally devoid of a spark.
Fans of both teams had packed the iconic stadium to the rafters in expectations of a cracker but they witnessed a damp squib instead.The Ecuadoreans were abysmal in the first half and they weren’t much different after the break. The loss to Switzerland with a last-gasp goal in their opening match came back to haunt them. The South Americans shouldn’t have a gripe about the result on Wednesday because their heartless performance didn’t warrant three points.
The red card to Valencia for a stomp on French left-back Lucas Digne was harsh but the Ecuadorean captain wouldn’t have made any difference to the result. France coach Didier Deschamps, who made six changes in his starting XI, would be worried about his team’s profligacy. Even though the stakes were considerably lower for Les Bleus, there was no excuse for Karim Benzema and Paul Pogba for missing chances they would have put away nine out of 10 times any other day.
Goalkeeper Alexander Dominguez was Ecuador’s best player on the pitch. Decisive in his interventions and assured in collection, the brave man didn’t roll over at the sight of stars plying their trade in top clubs in Europe.
