Ecuador battered the woodwork all night in Philadelphia. Ivory Coast scored once, late in the game, and that was the difference. For 89 minutes, this was a tense and tight-knit scoreless affair — two dark horses sizing each other up, neither willing to blink. Ecuador looked the likelier side to score in the first half as the team hit the frame of the goal multiple times, and ended up conceding late.Then Ivory Coast did what good tournament teams do: It waited, suffered and pounced. Here are my takeaways from a cruel night for La Tri in Philadelphia.1. Amad Diallo Punished Ecuador’s OptimismBefore kickoff, the most cheerful people in the yellow-clad Philadelphia crowd were the Ecuador fans who noticed Amad Diallo wasn’t starting. Funny how that works. The Manchester United winger sat and watched for an hour, then came on and decided the game. The winner had everything you’d want from him. Wilfried Singo burst down the right and pulled it back, and Amad met it first time, steering a low finish into the bottom corner with the kind of calm the previous 89 minutes had badly lacked. 1-0, dagger delivered, stadium silenced. If there’s a lesson for the rest of the field, it’s this: Ivory Coast has some serious weapons in the starting lineup and on the bench. He’s exactly the player you bring on to win these matches.2. Ecuador Should Sue The Woodwork (Photo by Harry Langer/DeFodi Images/DeFodi via Getty Images) That woodwork got bruised and battered all night long. John Yeboah rattled the bar. Alan Minda rattled the bar. Enner Valencia smacked the post off a slick one-two with Gonzalo Plata. La Tri hit the goal frame more often than they hit the target (once), which is a genuinely difficult thing to pull off. This was the dark-horse performance the hype promised. Ecuador pressed Ivory Coast into mistakes, controlled long stretches and looked the more likely side to score right up until the moment it conceded. Moisés Caicedo performed well in the middle and barely broke a sweat doing it. On another night, with three more inches of luck, it wins this comfortably. Instead, it got nothing.3. Ivory Coast Is Back — And It Wins UglyIvory Coast hadn’t been to a World Cup since 2014. It missed 2018 and 2022 entirely, watched two tournaments from the couch, and you would not have guessed it from how unbothered the team looked grinding this one out. The Elephants weren’t the better team for most of the night. They didn’t need to be.Ivory Coast vs Ecuador Extended…
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2026-06-15 02:54:49
