Ecuador - World Cup 2006

Country - ecuador
Capital - Quito
Continent - South America
Captain - Alex Aguinaga

How did they Qualify - ecuador`s football history was almost non existent until 2002 when they qualified for the World Cup for the first time ever.

ecuador were one of the sensations of the last qualifying campaign for the World Cup in 20002 in Korea/Japan. Although they were not quite good enough to make it through to the knockout stages at the World Cup they did finish the group stage with 1-0 victory over Croatia thanks to a Edison Mendez's goal, Croatia went on to finish third overall.

Four years later and ecuador have done it again having qualified for Germany 2006 with a game to spare, this came in a 0-0 home draw against Uruguay . However the road to Germany has not been all plain sailing for the south American side. ecuador`s coach, Hernan Dario Gomez resigned as their coach after seven qualifiers and a poor showing at the Copa America in Peru. This led to the appointment of another Colombian, Suarez who ensured ecuador`s qualification for Germany thanks to an unbeaten home record. These included a 1-0 win over Brazil thanks to a Edison Mendez goal in the 77th minute , another win against Argentina was sealed with goals by Christian Lara and Agustin Delgardo, the final score 2-0 . Also a 5-2 thrashing of Paraguay after being 2-0 behind helped them qualify in third place in their group behind Brazil and Argentina. They had amassed 28 points in total consisting of eight wins , four draws and six defeats.

National coach Suarez is regarded as a hero in ecuador but he refuses to be carried away by this kind of worship and is aiming to better the achievements made iun Korea four years ago. He is lucky to be able to call on some outstanding young players such as Christian Lara, Luis Valencia and Franklin Salas who will be looking to show the rest of Europe what they can do on the biggest stage of all. Add to this the experienced players like Ulises de La Cruz, Ivan Hurtado, Mendez and Agustin Delgado who will be hoping to have one final taste of glory, ecuador will be hoping to prove that Korea in 2002 was not a fluke and use that experience to go one better in Germany FIFA World cup 2006.

Above is the ecuador national team photo and badge along with description of their past in the FIFA world cup tournaments.