Group A Ecuador 3 Costa Rica 0Ecuador strolled past Costa Rica and into the second round of the World Cup yesterday for the first time in their history.
Goals in either half from Carlos Tenorio (8) and Agustin Delgado (54) and then a late strike from Ivan Kaviedes kept the South Americans' 100 percent record in Group A intact - they beat Poland 2-0 in their opening match - and they join Germany in the second round.
The group winners will be decided when Ecuador meet the hosts, Germany, next Tuesday.
Ecuador coach Luis Fernando Suarez was already looking forward to that match.
"It will be very difficult against Germany because the players are going to be tired. They played two games. They want to play a very good match against Germany. It will be a historic match," he said.
The Ticos, meanwhile, head home after the first phase for a second successive finals.
Despite early pressure from Costa Rica, Ecuador opened the scoring after eight minutes when Tenorio headed home from a nicely floated cross by Luis Valencia.
Costa Rica came out fighting once again in the second half, but their enthusiasm was short-lived as Ecuador doubled their tally in the 54th minute with a superbly taken goal. Edison Mendez won the ball on the right-hand corner of the box before Delgado pounced on to the loose ball, controlled it with his chest and rifled it home from a tight angle.
Two minutes into injury-time, Kaviedes turned the ball in with a volley after a cross from the right to make it three.
SUBSTITUTIONS
ECUADOR: Kaviedes for Carlos Tenorio (45 mins); Guagua for Espinoza (68 mins); Urrutia for Valencia, (73 mins). Subs not used: Villafuerte, Perlaza, Lara, Borja, Ambrossi, Ayovi, Saritama, Lanza, Benitez. Booked: Castillo, De la Cruz, Mora
COSTA RICA: Hernandez for Gonzalez (56 mins); Saborio for Fonseca (28 mins); Bernard for Centeno (84 mins), Subs not used: Drummond, Bolanos, Azofeifa, Badilla, Nunez, Rodriguez, Alfaro, Mesen. Booked: Marin, Solis.
Referee: Coffi Codjia (Benin).
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)