Switzerland is considered one of the Dark Horses of the Cup. I hope Ecuador changes that this Sunday. https://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/5-dark-horses-far-world-cup-221035445.html
You should take a look at all the Facebook groups, I saw one page where they placed Ecuador in a group with teams that had little hope of qualfying out of their groups, but then they placed Switzerland, Ghana, Chile, Colombia, Japan , Belgium, Ivory Coast as dark horse teams. I really hope we knock off the bandwagoner fans from their superficial cloud of stupidity by their claims that we're going home early and that we're no threat. I really hope our boys are playing strong on Sunday both offensively and defensively, but one thing is true, we always seem to impress when we're underestimated the most, meanwhile the overhyped teams(ie. Belgium, Colombia, Chile tend to underperform) in these tournaments meanwhile they are usually overhyped by big names in big European teams, one example was the 2010 Fifa World Cup-Chile under Biesla, won 1-0 against both Honduras and the Swiss, qualified to the next round and got hammered 3-0 by Brazil.
Wall Street Journal is just another mainstream bullshit paper that writes things that appease the typical moron who has believes everything mainstream and popular has enourmous significance. They would place all the teams with full European based squads as potential winners in the tournament because that's generally the mindset of the mainstream observer of soccer who doesn't know that football doesn't depend on fancy schmancy big name teams owning their players but passion and skill for their national team, those players aren't playing with their club teams or the players on that club team, they are playing with different players so those club team skills won't always apply to the national team. Also, I always see Ivory Coast as an overhyped team in my honest opinion due to the enourmous exposure to European club football their national team players have, but generally speaking their world cup record is nothing to brag about, I recall in 2010 they were severely overhyped to make it out of their group and they only ended up scratching the third place with 1 point. Same, I recall people claiming POland was going to outperform Ecuador in the first match of the World Cup, didn't happen, but I feel it's best when things play out low key like that.
Read the article its making their prediction based on statistics other than soccer talent "the world cup of everything else". specificly internet user per 100 people.... This isnt a real atempt at predicting the outcome of the world cup...
aw man, I didn't read the small print. "How the tournament would play out if those 32 countries were competing in things other than soccer" Switzerland is considered one of the Dark Horses of the Cup. I hope Ecuador changes that this Sunday. https://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/5-dark-horses-far-world-cup-221035445.html
I like that people are underestimating us. Think we play better that way. Hopefully we shut their mouth on Sunday. I really hope Noboa makes it for the game against the Swiss. Think he is key to our midfield especially with Castillo out.
Playing the Predictor Game, I predicted: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup/10501412/World-Cup-2014-Wallchart-Predictor-Game.html
Really? you sure are overly optimistic... You do realize how bad our defense is right? lol Switzerland is a very good team better then Honduras they've only lost 1 match in 2 years... Our best chance to get a result against Switzerland is to play defensively and counterattack... That means dropping Caicedo for Arroyo I think it's the only way otherwise they will score atleast 2 goals... Honduras we have to beat to have any chance to advance their defense is the weakest of our opponents. France we will not beat unless they are already through and don't have much to play for. I personally would consider just making out of the group a big success.
I think as it stand we are the definition of darkhorse team. Even a well informed fan does not know how the team will flair in the wc. 1) Enner Valencia. A recent introduction to our team. How will he react to being thrown into the spotlight? 2) who is going to replace Castillo? If Gruezo takes his place. He has an opportunity to be the one player to suprise the whole turnament even ecudorian fans. Who would have guessed he would be starting in our mid 3 weeks ago? Currently being scouted by Chelsea, This tournament could potentially the most important month in his footballing carrer. 3) Will montero break from his recent poor form and show European teams that he is worthy of the price tag mexican teams are placing on his head? 4) Will our defense be able to escape any majoe errors? Time will tell.We have the potential to surprise everyone and have 2 true breakout players. Or we could crash and burn. Its all very exciting.
lets not forget Arroyo, he is definitely a very under estimated player and if he gets time to play he could also be a breakout player....... so i say we have about 3 - 4 players the 4th player being Paredes, I know a lot of people don't think much of him but he helps the team create opportunities, these players could really make a diff for us in our games.
you have a point. The reson I didn't include him is I don't thing rueda will put him in. I would love to see this line up. Montero - Enner Arroyo-Gruezo-Noboa-Valencia 4 defenders... Alexander I also think give our players and our development we should look to move to a 2 5 3 formation
I see your points and agree. I think the reason we haven't been taken into serious account as a dark horse is simply because we are a higher risk to actually crash and burn than these other teams that are being mentioned. People will always underestimate us. I don't blame them though, were one of the only countries in South America who hasn't won the copa America (even when it was in Ecuador we only managed a 4th place finish)! And the only World Cup performance we looked strong in was 8 years ago. Anyway other than Argentina and Brazil the only teams that are taken serious sporadically are Uruguay and Colombia.
Ya CH@cha mucha webada contra nosotros, that our kit is the ugliest, etc..Lets Go Mi Tricolor...a cerrarles trompas a todos los Haters..Chucho is with us and we are going to take the group.Si Se Puede MOFOS....Vamos Ecuador..oh oh oh ohoho....(como la cancion)
I see the referee calling everything in favor of the Swiss after watching today's game. We should go all guns blazing.
Btw I'm not actually a new member here, my old username was Pepe Pancho but I lost my email password and forgot my account password so had to create a new account
Just hoping our boys are ready to go to work on Sunday's match, we cannot afford to have shitty defending and goalkeeping with a team like the Swiss, I just don't underestimate them. But at the same time I'm trying to be positive and remember that we were also considered underdogs against Poland and we actually pulled through.I guess anything can happen, but that defense must at ll times be tight! Also if I'm not wrong Minda was part of the first few qualifiers including the one versus Uruguay in Montevideo right? I recall our defense was on point that match and so was our midfield, I've never actually seen Minda as a CB though anyone have a clue about him?
Nope check out #FEFEcuador on Twitter they said it wasn't anything serious, just a little pain but they didn't need to do a magnetic resonance on his leg.