World Cup qualifying for 2018 is heading into its final stretch in South America, with the matches this past Thursday officially starting the second half of the qualifying round in CONMEBOL. The way the table has shaken out so far has taken many by surprise, and as Ecuador get set to face Venezuela at home on Tuesday, the hosts are hoping to cause a few more surprises along the way.
Ecuador vs. Venezuela live stream: Start time, TV schedule, and 3 things to know
Two struggling teams face off in CONMEBOL World Cup qualifying, with host Ecuador hoping to better secure their standing in the table.
Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images
Once the top team in the qualifying table in fairly shocking fashion, Ecuador have fallen off rather badly in terms of their form since the Copa América Centenario began this past summer. Now they’ve won just one of their last five qualifying matches and slipped to fourth place in the table, which is decidedly not where they want to be. They need to start racking up wins fast if they want to stay in the top four places that go directly to the World Cup in 2018, and that means picking up a decisive win against Venezuela to start getting their momentum headed in the right direction again.
TV: beIN Sports (U.S. - English), beIN SPORTS en Español (U.S. - Spanish), RTS (Ecuador), Merediano (Venezuela)
Online: beIN Sports Connect (U.S.)
Match Date/Time: Tuesday, 4 p.m. ET
Venue: Estadio Olímpico Atahualpa, Quito, Ecuador
Three big things to know
- Ecuador are in a good place in the CONMEBOL qualifying rankings right now, holding the fourth and final guaranteed spot in the 2018 World Cup if qualification ended right now. Of course, there are still nine more games to go including this tilt against Venezuela, and Ecuador’s grasp on that fourth-place standing is fairly tenuous — they only have a goal-differential advantage over Chile in the playoff spot, and their lead over eighth-placed Peru is only three points. There’s very little margin for error for Ecuador right now, but with their shaky form only giving them four points in their last six qualifying matches, they need to start turning things around quickly before “margin for error” turns into “making up lost ground.”
- Of course, Venezuela are in much worse shape, only just rising from the bottom place in the qualifying standings with their win over Bolivia on Thursday, with that serving as just their fifth win in the last 18 months. It’s been a long string of futility for Venezuela, which is a shame since they looked like a potentially fun team on the rise coming out of the 2015 Copa América — but it’s been all downhill since then. Maybe their big 5-0 win over Bolivia will give them some positive momentum at last, but they’ll need to prove that’s possible with a win on the road in Quito.
- If Venezuela are going to beat Ecuador on the road, however, they’re going to have to dramatically re-shape their game plan from Thursday. They beat Bolivia largely by outrunning them and wearing them down with speed and constant long runs at the defense — but that’s a tactic that will play straight into Ecuador’s hands if they do that again in this match. Ecuador love to sit back a bit to wait for their opponents to stretch themselves out, then go off to the races on a lightning-quick counter. They have the pacy and athletic players to do it with style — something Bolivia lacked against Venezuela — and if Venezuela come out too aggressively, the same game plan that worked so well for them a few days ago could see them blown off the pitch this time around.
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