Frickson Erazo seems to be carrying on an ankle injury. Might have to get surgery and will be out for 3 months. Maybe that explains his performance vs. Chile being bad.
What happened to Morante did he ever get better from his injury? I would love to see him play in one of these friendlies if he isn't injured or playing bad. What about Campos? Will those guys ever come back?
I really think we need to get Juan Cazares into a gym and give him a call-up. That kid is the future, has played for River Plate and currently with Banfield and doing well- he has a lot of maturity for his age, and as a personal friend of mine, I can attest to that, too. Level headed and focused on the sport...if given the chance, I know he can do well. Him and Bryan de la Torre.
I been trying to find out more about how hes doing in Banfield, I know hes had 2 games in a row in which hes played all 90 minutes, before he was always getting subbed 10-15 minutes into the second half, I read in El Clarin about Banfield but he doesnt get mentioned too much, they never wriiten anything negative about him either tho, However, what they write about Banfield is very little. Bryan de La Torre isnt getting too uch playing time at BSC, yet I think hes awesome and deserves to play, I can speak of BSC that Gruezo, Velasco and even Pinilla are doing quite well, I understand these are player that might not make the World Cup squad but IMO should be called up right after it and start training for Copa America, I'd be dissapointed if I see Castillo (as much as I like him) and Walter (my favorite Ecua player) still in the NT after World Cup. Did you watch the Liga-Independiente match this weekend? dude, Guerrero is making noise.
I haven't seen Morante play is a good while, but he has that Aerial game that Erazo seems to lack. Seeing as our 2 Stating CB's won't be present for the game, I'm "assuming" Rueda may make a few call ups in the Defensive section, for the next friendlies against Argentina and Honduras. I'm really liking Arboleda, at 1st i though he's a CB but he's actually a LeftBack, would be a good option also. Walter has a year atleast in the tank but then after I'm sure either Ramirez, Oyola, Corozo, or even Arboleda can take over (Though I believe Corozo will be on the right ). I don't know what to say about U Catolica's defender (Andres Mendoza). i personally didn't watch the Emelec match yesterday but 7-0 something must have gone terribly wrong 0_o. On the Right Back position well we cans till seek some depth, Pineida has been one of those RB's since the awesome U-20 Team I have been following and would love to see him get called up. On the Midfield well, Gruezo and Gaibor as some have mentioned seem to be the "logical" replacements for an aging Castillo, and maybe Noboa (Even though hes been awesome these past games). Keep calling up Fidel and Sornoza, Fidel nearly scored against Chile in like what, 7 mins! xD, Sornoza is killing it in the Campeonato. I do believe if we can't find a Striker that pairs up well with Caicedo, then we should try a 4-5-1 with a Media Punta and Sornoza may be the man for that (or even Colon, but hes gone down recently). Hell even try Chiqui Guerrero just killin it like Sornoza. On the Offense I really can't say much, it's just difficult to find a person for immediate impact on the spot. Marlon de Jesus seems to keep slowly building up. I think call up's may just make him gain more confidence. other than that I hope the friendlies we gain before the World Cup can help us find those much needed missing links Edit: Also It's a shame John Jaramillo got practically lost in Barcelona's bench, quite frankly I think the kid had potential (more than Banguera or Dominguez). Though disciplinary problems really have had an impact on who we get to see and don't -_-'
Erazo will be having surgery apparently, plenty of time for him to heal and go to World Cup at full strenght, I think Campos will be ready also, Achiler, Guagua too, I'm willing to bet those 4 will be our defense at World Cup, unless something happens. The Benitez position is a harder question, will Rueda continue his Enner Valencia project and try to convert him into the second forward role or will he look for alternatives, top of my head, these are the forwards that at some point were considered to be a future prospect or an alternative. Felix Borja: Not playing after injury, has yet to score this season in Puebla, already given chances, a definitely no IMO. Marlon De Jesus; Isnt getting much playing time either in Monterrey, I doubt he'll stay there after this season, he might end up getting transferred to another team in that whole draft deal Mexico has. On a personal note, I don't trust him with the ball in front of the goal and no keeper. (hes failed at this) Juan Anangono: His MLS highlights are actually good, the guys athletic, good header, fast and has managed to earn a starting spot wherever hes gone, scored back to back recently and does ok at the role of "assisting" the teams main scorer. I'm not saying hes a solution but in a desperate situation in which we find ourselves kind of, its an alternative. Edson Montano; I was excited when he signed up with Barcelona but his injury, then the trade, yet hes found somewhat of a consistency at El Nacional, didnt play this weekend can someone tell me why? hes scored some nice goals for them, how to forget that goal agaisnt Cuenca. yet I fear hes become another Orlindo Ayovi, Richard Mercado, Edmundo Zura, all those could have beens. Walter Chala: I know most of you will tell me wtf is he doing in this list, we never talk about him, this is a guy I had so much hope for, to me he was the ideal forward when he played for us in the U-20 World Cup qualifiers, Fast, nice shot, decent dribbling for a big man, his crosses were good and fantastic header, He got injured in Rubin Kazan and got lost for a while, goes back to Cuenca and he did aesome imo now hes hiding away in Second division in Russia, keep in mind hes 21 only. Christian Marquez: Too old. Anyone else? keep in mind I'm talking strictly forwards.
Morante i think you can forget about. Especially for the WC. I think he will never tap back into his top form. He's leaving Liga after this season so who knows what his future will be. I feel like the only way he'll get back to top shape is going back home to Emelec. And at this point it will be extremely difficult for him to claim a spot there b/c Nasuti and Achilier are the starters. Campos will be back 100%, his injury was pretty serious and it has taken him almost a year to recover fully but he'll be back. Didn't he get injured last November 2012? Let's hope for the best.
That sucks man, Morante seemed so promising, I was excited to see him play for U. de Chile, but then the injury occured and he got sidelined and well we know the rest. I wished some our guys had better luck, so sad how so much potential can get wasted just because of a injury. Well lets hope that somehow in the new year he redeems himself and comes back to la seleccion, Guagua doesn't convince me at all, unless our opponents are New Zealand or Mexico in their current state, Guagua is going to get destroyed . I just hope that for our bad luck we don't end up in the group of death!
Since we can't face Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, and Uruguay in the group stages we have to face Spain, Germany, Switzerland or Belgium in our group. I was thinking about this and f*** I'm pumped! I think we can give those teams a good game, except for Germany which is a candidate to win it all.
But isn't Brazil, COlombia, Argentina and Uruguay in the same top seeded pot as Germany and SPain, wouldn't we still have the probability of facing those South American teams in the group stages? I know our other two opponents could be an Asian team(Australia, hopefully) or a concacaf team(Mexico, hopefully) and another European team(could be Greece, France, Portugal, if they qualify). I wouln't mind us playing POrtugal again or if anything I would love a revancha versus ENgland this time around with Neymar Ecuatoriano playing lol. I really fear playing Germany , the Netherlands, Spain and Italy though...
Back in I swear that was before Germany 2006? Pre World CUp friendly? Regardless we lost to a B-team Germany 4-0 in 25 minutes, I have to say I fear what would happen against the likes of Sneijder, Van Persie and co... Our defence is our main defect.
And we lost to Poland what? 3-0 right before we even knew we were going to play them in Germany? They are just friendlies and I'm sure our guys will give it their all when it actually comes to play in the WC. England weren't better than us either.
Those pre-WC friendlies are always a double-edged sword. To be honest, I'd rather go into the WC with teams underestimating us. The 3-0 friendly loss to Poland was the best thing that happened to us, because all the pressure was on them to beat us in Germany. These friendlies should be about giving guys like Martinez, Sornoza, Corozo, Ibarra and other up-and-coming guys the chance to make the starting XI. Unfortunately, based on past experience Rueda will always start our strongest team, then if we don't do well we fall into a crisis of confidence.
This would be my perfect list assuming we could take 23 players GK: Maximo Banguera Alexander Dominguez John Jaramillo ( He would benefit a lot from this type of experience, plus he would be a real challenge unlike Bone. DF: Mario Pineida Juan Carlos Paredes Frickson Erazo John Narvaez Andres Mendoza Luis Caicedo (Independiente) Ayovi Ramirez MF: Antonio Valencia Renato Ibarra Christian Noboa Fernando Gaibor Alex Colon Segundo Castillo/Edison Mendez Jefferson Montero Joao Rojas/Enner Valencia FW: Felipe Caicedo Junior Sornoza Marcos Caicedo Jaime Ayovi/Juan Anangono
It is, but at the same time it isn't. I already told you guys earlier that even with all our injuries or bajones, we are still the third best defense in south america and when we went into the last qualifier match vs. Chile you wanna know what our goals counted against us was? -14. Wanna know what the two best defenses in South america were? Colombia and Argentina. What were their numbers? -12. So in all honesty the difference between our difference and theirs was very slim. If they're better than us defensively, it is by a very slim margin. And let me add that we had injuries of Campos (the main starter), Morante (one of our best center backs at the time of his injury), and then Achilier, Erazo, and Paredes having bad seasons in 2013. With all those negatives, we still managed to qualify and be the third best defense in the qualifier. Imagine if the team was complete and Achi, Erazo, and Paredes didn't go through the bad season they had and the injuries didn't occur? Easily we would have been the best defense. Easily. I'm convinced of it. Anyway, the problem isn't the defense. At least not in the long run, it was just a short run problem and we ran into some obstacles, but there's an immediate solution to the defense. But look up front....that's where we need to polish up. That's the main focus Rueda needs to have. Everything else is fine and isn't of major concern IMO.
We'd get raped right now with that defense. No experience at all. I think those guys would be perfect after the WC but not for the WC as starters. I think out of all those guys Pineida and maybe Mendoza has the highest chances of making it on the list if they keep up their level and make a move to a bigger team in ecuador or go somewhere outside ecuador. The WC is for experienced players. You can add some youth in there, but the defense (especially and most of all) has to be led by experienced players. And Jaramillo is BSC's 4th keeper, if that. I don't even know if he plays futbol anymore or if he skipped practice so much he forgot he was a footballer. that was one of the most talented keepers coming up at youth level, but the biggest moron of a player. Thank God he left Liga! Out with the garbage.
When it comes to our defense and backing up to what B9 says, they scored 16 goals on us, take out the 4 that Argentina did we are left with 12 in 15 games, within those 12 goals we must remember this 1 goal was autogol on a "shit happens" play 2 Arango's long shot goal on us cant be blamed on the defenders. 3 PK against Argentina defense couldnt do much, I actually blame Dominguez 4 Goal in Bolivia, again Dominguez takes the cake. 5 Goal in Colombia Banguera screwed up (so did Paredez) 6 and to give credit to others, Pizarro, Cavani and Alexis Sanchez scored on us, then again these are world class forwards who scored on us oin their field. please take this into consideration when judging our defense. Now, why aint we talking what REALLY needs work, the offense, we havent replaced Chucho AND something that we dont mention, but why are we the worst South American team at pelotas paradas? we are a non threat, we didnt score not even a goal on direct free kicks, I think other than Castillos goals against Chile and Venezuela cant seem to remember any goals we got from a free kick nor corner kick.
Also, no one wants to shoot from outside the 18! Against Chile, Noboa finally attempts a long distance shot and Fidel almost scores off of the rebound. We need a guy like Arroyo to have a go from outside the 18 once in a while. Someone who will make our attacks a little less predictable. This would help our offense so much.
Noboa needs to score more for the NT. He scores plenty at club level. Castillo scored 3 goals - important ones - during the qualifiers. Noboa has been fantastic in every way except he should try to pop in with some goals here and there.