Thursday, June 15, 2006

Costa Rica v Ecuador

This was the first potential elimination game of the tournament, since an Ecuadorian win would close the door for both Costa Rica and Poland to make the second round. Ecuador took control early, scoring in the 8th minute off a cross to Carlos Tenorio, and again early in the second half to Augustin Delgado, both showing some poor defending by the Ticos. Costa Rica really only created one good chance the whole game, and this is the second game Ecuador has put away weaker opposition without any trouble. The only real highlight to me was when Ivan Kaviedes iced the game by scoring in injury time, then pulled a yellow mask out of his shorts so he could run around looking like an Ecuadorian Spiderman or something. Seriously, down the front of his sweaty shorts. It's also a second clean sheet for the Ecuadorian keeper, Cristian Mora, who paints the flag on his cheeks for each game.

Ecuador 3-0 Costa Rica
'8 Tenorio
'54 Delgado
'92 Kaviedes

Ecuador has taken control of the group by beating both Costa Rica and Poland by larger scores than Germany, meaning the Germans need to beat them outright to take the group. This group plays off with Group B (England, Sweden, T&T, Paraguay) and then meets the group of death (Argentina, Netherlands, Cote d'Ivoire, Serbia) in the quarterfinals, and those groups could end up in any order, so there's no point looking ahead yet.

Group A
Ecuador 6pts 5-0
Germany 6pts 5-2
Poland 0pts 0-3
Costa Rica 0pts 2-7

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