Valencia takes the headlines in Qatar

 

Enner Valencia scoring twice

After 12 years of controversy, questions and numerous reports of terrible conditions and how Qatar would accept the world. Also, this will be the last World Cup to feature 32 teams as the next one jumps to 48 teams. The World Cup started with the hosts playing Ecuador in a tough group A which also feature Holland and AFCON Winners Senegal. Qatar decided to play with a 5-3-2 formation with players that had not played in their league campaign this season which would come into the showing during the second half. Meanwhile, Ecuador came out in the classic 4-4-2 formation. 

The controversial moment in the game

 While Ecuador had to go through qualification in South America and barely survived appeals by both Peru and Chile because Qatar being the host and guaranteed a spot, they needed tournament practice, so in 2019, they were granted an invite to the Copa America and won the Asian Cup and then last year, they got to the semifinal of the Gold Cup. They also played friendlies against 8 of Europe's top nations. After the national anthems had been sung, the customary handshakes and the coin toss, it was time to start the World Cup.

At the start of the game, Ecuador thought they had scored a goal with Enner Valencia. Still, the goal was disallowed after VAR came in and showed that Felix Torres was in an offside position after the Qatari goalkeeper missed at grabbing the ball twice. However, 10 minutes later, after Ecuador snatched the ball from Qatar, Valencia was on for the goal when his right leg got caught by the hand of the goalkeeper and was brought down for a penalty. Valencia cooly slotted the penalty in the bottom left corner of the net. Then 15 minutes later, Valencia decided to put a claim on the golden boot with his second after scoring a cracker to make it 2-0.

The second half became more of a training exercise as Qatar offered no threat of attacking Ecuador's goal, and Ecuador could hold the ball in the middle of the pitch and do whatever they wanted. However, Ecuador almost let Qatar in on two occasions. One was just before halftime when they almost put the ball in the net, but it went wide off the post. The other time was with 5 minutes to go when Qatar broke through Ecuador's defence, but the shot went sailing just over the bar.

At full time with Qatar losing, they became the first-ever hosts to lose their opening game and only had 2 touches inside the opposition box. Next in Group A is Holland Senegal, which is tomorrow sandwiched between England vs Iran and USA vs Wales. 

Will be back with more.

KRO Mark