Ecuador v Curaçao: World Cup 2026 – live
Nicknamed the “card master” owing to his strict approach, this will be Ma Ning’s World Cup debut – the first game officiated by a Chinese
Nicknamed the “card master” owing to his strict approach, this will be Ma Ning’s World Cup debut – the first game officiated by a Chinese referee since the 2002 edition. The referee tonight is Ma Ning from China, where he has amassed quite a large fanbase (for a referee) owing to the country’s failure to qualify for any World Cup since 2002. He’s a big enough deal to have attracted sponsorships from the likes of Lenovo and Hisense, according to the BBC.
Germany left it late but escaped with an important win against Côte d’Ivoire, thanks to a late goal from Deniz Undav. Hello folks! Alexander Abnos here, and I’m thrilled to be able to follow this match along with all of you. Curaçao enters the game on the back of a 7-1 drubbing by Germany. The lopsided scoreline was perhaps expected, what with Germany’s status as a world power and Curaçao being the smallest country ever to qualify for a World Cup.
But then there were those 17 minutes. Those glorious, glorious 17 minutes. That was the amount of time between Liviano Comenencia’s equalizer and Nico Schlotterbeck’s goal to make it 2-1. In that period, Curaçao allowed their fans to party and to dream. If you love football and aren’t an Ecuador fan, you’ll be hoping for similar tonight. If you’re an Ecuador fan, though, you’re probably feeling pretty confident, despite a World Cup-opening loss to Côte d’Ivoire. La Tricolor hit the bar twice in that match and only lost due to a last-gasp finish from Amad Diallo.
They have one of the strongest spines in the tournament and can get a dark horse campaign underway with a solid result today. The setting: Kansas City, the home of the four-time Super Bowl champion Chiefs and the best barbecue in all the land. Kansas City Stadium was rocking for its first game, hosting Argentina v Algeria. I’m excited to see how it looks today.
The BriefWire