Esta joddido señores. No nos van a regalar nada. We look terrible today, and never adjusted to the high press.
See you guys next time. That tie and immediate conceding of the next goal made this loss 2x harder to stomach.
Bad, bad call by Alfaro to start Gruezo in the midfield. Wow. Horrible way to leave the WC. Just plain terrible.
Bad luck. Should have beaten Holland and today I don't know what Alfaro was thinking. Just hope for a draw. Just handed the initiative to Senegal. It's a young side but they should have made it out of the group.
Alfaro messed up by not putting Porozo in a 3 man defense. Once he came in Senegal completely shut down in attack.
Our defense blew chunks today,erratic passing,if Gruezo wasn’t up to it,should have been Cifu from the get and don’t know what Alfaro was thinking putting Franco against the more physically Senegalese.Seriously though no more Estrada.
That Mendez suspension cost us hard in the end because Gruezo can't move the ball AT ALL. But its only up from here. The base is established and this experience will be valuable for them.
Gents- this is our watershed moment. What do we do with the lessons from this match? These guys will learn an invaluable lesson today, and hopefully it stays with them for their entire career. We can learn a lot from our failures. We lost this game the moment the first whistle initiated play. The guys looked scared, couldn't string 3 passes together, lost possession so easily, and could not mark a man to save their lives....we got absolutely torched in the first half. Especially Franco and Gruezo...not even entirely their fault because they didn't get any minutes in prior games. Hincapie was a shell of his best self. Estrada was a ghost. Now on to the plato fuerte. Alfaro must go. The boys were poorly coached today. Tactics failed from the onset, but worst of all, they were just not mentally ready to rise to the challenge. There's clear evidence that this game looked a lot like instances in the Copa America where we just buckled- in fact, some of the mistakes from last year manifested themselves again...almost exact matches of our worst blunders. If he can't coach these bad behaviors or mental lapses out of our guys, he's not our man. I thank him for everything he has done to rejuvenate the team, and that will be his legacy, but we can't expect different results with the same mindset...he will not change. Every instance where we keep a coach beyond a WC cycle, the team starts tanking (radically) - there is yet to be a coach who has hung on for so long. We need someone who will dramatically work on mindset and keep mining the talent pool while nurturing our best. Today was a wake up call...we're young. Talented, yes, but we weren't ready to make the big leap. Arriba la seleccion. Forever with these guys, and let's send them our support on social media, but we need to think about next steps.
Moving forward we need to keep that 3 man defense because leaving Porozo on the bench is a waste of his talent. But I'm proud of the boys too. They showed they can bring it to any team and next world cup cycle we will hopefully have a great GK and forward to match the other areas.
The team looked nervous from the start. Not having Mendez for this game was unfortunate. He was the brains of the team in the first two games. Gruezo didn't look right. I also had my doubts about Franco. Nothing against him but the game called for a more physical player. Cifu should have gone in from the start. Torres looked nervous. Enner didn't look right either which is understandable given his injury.
Yikes they dropped the ball, Gruezo really sucked and Franco was not the guy for the game. Hincapie really has a habit of committing costly errors in defence. Galindez left a sour taste in my mouth this tournament caught sleeping vs Netherlands and i feel like Dominguez wouldve gotten a hand on that second Senegal goal. The pros is that despite the loss Ecuador played a good competitive WC and showed alot of backbone. This was an important experience for our main core of guys (Torres, Hincapie, Pervis, Preciado, Sarmiento, Plata, Caicedo, Cifu and Palacios). The team was built for a deep run in 2026 if everyone keeps their standard of play, I'm sure many of our guys will make the jump to bigger teams or be given bigger roles. I'm sure our performance has put more eyes on Ecuador. The cons will Alfaro continue with this group he was the guy to bring the best out of our youth in this level of their development but is he the guy to take them to the next level. Goalkeeping; its the end of an era for our keepers will Ramirez be able to take the helm on the international level. Finally the area which plagues us the most our attack who will step up we really have no options, Reasco and Rodriguez are not gonna cut it long term. To sum it up our boys played a fantastic tournament with impressive performances. They lost to an experienced cohesive team in Senegal; they arent the AFCON champs for nothing they could learn alot from them. Moments like these define the great players from the bad will they be motivated by the loss or fade into nothing like previous players on previous squads.
I’m proud of these kids. They proved they don’t give up and now we have a strong core to fight Copa America without having to experiment.
I felt exactly the same way about Galindez. Dominguez is taller and stronger than Galindez. I think he would have made those saves. Man we really needed some muscle up front. Enner and Plata got shut down too easily. I really wish we would have bought Campana or even Jordy.
I wouldve prefered both over Reasco tbh, hopefully next cylce these guys will be given consistent looks on the NT.
Seeing Moises, Hincapie, and Plata cry hurts but I'm sure those 3 will be on a mission for the next qualifiers, especially Moises.
They're also some of the youngest guys on the squad...their aspiration to be great is partly due to their amazing ability, but it's also factored in by age (and the sensation of kids getting their dreams squashed). If they take that pain and channel it intentionally to the next few seasons, I think we'll be in very good shape. They all have bright futures ahead of them.
I hope players make the move to more competitive leagues. Torres, Cifu, Palacios, and Mendez have to make the move to Europe. We need more guys playing champions league football. Jordy Caicedo can offer some physicality. Campana is tall and has added muscle mass but he's not a player that will clash with opposing players.
I forgot to include Porozo. Honestly he's the one who stood out the most this world cup alongside Moises. They both have the mental fortitude for big games.
I think we have to start thinking about what comes next, and that’s copa America. I believe a lot of teams will be rebuilding this time around. Argentina will not have di María and Messi for a lot longer… same with Uruguay with Cavani, and Suarez. Chile will be playing with Alexis until he’s 50.