Ecuador Unmasks Its Offense, Will Advance
HAMBURG, Germany — The high point in Ecuador’s soccer history came with a punctuation mark Thursday that will take some time to erase from memory.
How often, after all, does Spiderman make an appearance on the World Cup stage?
He did so when Ivan Kaviedes, a flamboyant striker for Ecuador, slalomed through Costa Rica’s porous defense, latched onto a pass from Edison Mendez and slammed home his team’s third and final goal.
Kaviedes then raced to one corner of Hamburg’s World Cup Stadium and produced a bright yellow Spiderman mask from somewhere on his person and donned it briefly in a celebratory routine.
Kaviedes has made a name for himself with this act in South America. That he was able to perform it in front of a sellout crowd of 65,000, a worldwide television audience and the not-at-all-amused Costa Rican fans made it that much sweeter for the 28-year-old forward.
Kaviedes has a history of disciplinary problems and has been traded from one club to another across seven countries, but his Spiderman routine remains immensely popular with Ecuador’s fans.
With its 3-0 victory Thursday, Ecuador not only secured a place in the final 16 for the first time in its soccer history but dragged World Cup host Germany along with it.
Both have the maximum six points from two games and cannot be caught by their group rivals. Consequently, Costa Rica and Poland became the first teams to be mathematically eliminated.
Few picked the South Americans to advance out of the group.
Strange people in peculiar costumes might have something to do with Ecuador’s success, however. And not only Kaviedes.
Before the monthlong, tournament began, Tzamarenda Naychapi, a shaman from Ecuador, visited each of the dozen World Cup stadiums in full regalia.
What he did there remains a mystery, but it appears to have worked.
The shaman’s power will be sorely tested in Ecuador’s next two matches. Next up is World Cup host Germany in Berlin on Tuesday, followed most likely by a second-round match against off-form but still powerful England.
Thursday’s match was never in doubt. Costa Rica, which was trounced by Germany in its opener, was completely out of sorts.
Ecuador controlled every aspect of the match, employing an attractive passing game that left the Ticos bewildered.
Striker Carlos Tenorio gave Ecuador the lead with an excellent header off a Luis Valencia cross in the eighth minute and the South Americans never looked back.
Agustin Delgado doubled their advantage in the 54th minute, with Mendez providing the telling pass before Delgado to blast a shot just inside the near post from an acute angle.
After that, all that was left was for Kaviedes to have his moment in the sun.
