South America started the 2022 football World Cup on the right foot after Ecuador comfortably defeated Qatar by 2-0, becoming the first team ever to beat a host nation at its tournament debut.
Ecuador showed its superiority from the start, when a goalkeeper mistake from a set piece left the goal wide open for star striker Enner Valencia to head home, only for the video assistant referee (VAR) to disallow the goal after a late review.
This is what happened with the disallowed goal. The ball came off Felix Torres, who was challenging the keeper.
— Dale Johnson (@DaleJohnsonESPN) November 20, 2022
It fell to Michael Estrada, whose foot you can see in an offside position. He headed the ball back to Torres.
Correct VAR decision! #QatarWorldCup2022 #QATECU pic.twitter.com/451TjTjGYK
The decision was typical of what makes VAR a controversial system, disliked by many traditional football fans, as Michael Estrada’s marginal offside position — several seconds after the ball bounced off the head of his partner Félix Torres — gave him no real advantage, and would likely never have been sanctioned by a human referee.
But Ecuador rapidly overcame that setback when Valencia was brought down by goalkeeper Saad Al Sheeb as he dribbled around him, resulting in a penalty that Valencia himself turned into the first goal of the World Cup.
Valencia then scored a thumping header to double Ecuador’s lead after only half an hour of football, and the game seemed all but over from that moment onwards.
Ecuador stuck to Argentine coach Gustavo Alfaro’s conservative style, controlling the game on its own half of the field while looking to take advantage of its talented, speedy strikers on the counter-attacking game, while Qatar tried to keep the ball with short passes when possible, rarely aiming for a more direct attacking approach.
The largest scare for Ecuador didn’t come from Qatar’s couple of attacking chances but from an injury scare to Valencia, who returned to the game after dangerously twisting his knee at the end of the first half.
Qatar’s performance was disappointing, as the team was coming from a recent victory at the Asian Cup in 2019 and expected to do better at home. Ecuador fans ended up chanting “Olé, Olé, Olé,” in the style of Spanish bullfighting fans, with Qatar players in the role of the disoriented bull.
The winner now awaits its second game of the cup against the Netherlands, who are widely seen as Group A’s favorites, though Ecuador’s defining match of the tournament might be next week against Senegal, looking to finish within the group’s first two positions to qualify for the tournament’s round of 16.
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