A Brief History of National Football in Ecuador

The history of football in Ecuador is like that of other South American countries, only a lot less so. They are still minnows in international soccer, but their second straight appearance in the World Cup shouldn’t be considered a fluke.

As the story goes, two international men of mystery—Juan Alfredo and Roberto Wright—showed up in Ecuador with a football as part of their luggage. As was generally the case on the South American continent, a league sprouted up about 45 minutes later. The first official match actually took place in 1900, while the Ecuador Sports Club was founded two years after that.

In 1925, the FEF (Federacion Ecuatoriana de Futbol) was founded, although under a different name, and became of a part of FIFA in the next year.

Ecuador have participated in 20 Copa America championships, with their best showing a 4th place finish in 1993 on home turf.

A World Cup appearance proved elusive for many decades until La Tri qualified for Japan/Korea 2002. Ecuador were placed in the same group as Italy, Mexico and Croatia. Although Ecuador eventually crashed out of the group stage after losing to both Italy and Mexico, they salvaged an impressive 1-0 win against Croatia, a team that had reached the final four at France 1998.

Making the World Cup finals is one thing. Doing it back to back means it was no accident. Especially when you consider the tough qualifying region in which Ecuador sits. Okay, CONMEBOL can be a little top heavy, but y’all get the idea.

So, some cynics (uh, me) have noted that Ecuador’s qualification was likely aided by the immense advantage of playing home matches in Quito. Still, that’s not Ecuador’s fault. And I dare say that if Ecuador qualify for 2010, that’s an outright trend.