Ecuador surrendered to the feet of Enner Valencia: protagonist figure and brace for the debut victory against Qatar

“Enneeeeeeer, Enneeeeeeer, Enneeeeeeer…”. The handful of thousands of Ecuadorians who arrived at the Al Bayt stadium in the middle of the Qatari desert this Sunday surrendered at the feet of their marker. A scorer who didn’t elicit a big smile on his team’s World Cup debut Gustavo Alfaro before the extremely weak and innocent Qatar.

There were two goals in the opening match which could have been three if the semi-automatic offside, released very quickly in the opening match, hadn’t detected a pinpoint offside from Michael Estrada at the dawn of play.

Those two cries put him in the running to be, why not, one of the candidates for the Golden Boot, it’s risky. But we will have to wait for the future of the competition to find out if double goals will be on the agenda or not in this World Cup. Enner already has one in the Middle East.

Respect for Valencia, chosen Man of the Match, born 33 years ago in San Lorenzo, a city of just over 20,000 inhabitants very close to the border with Colombia, was more than deserved. It was timely and sharp, taking advantage of the spaces left by the opposing defense, overwhelmed by the sudden line of the four forwards proposed by Alfaro. They also gave him the penalty which helped him, with an execution of pure class, soft against the right post, to break that fragile scoreless when he had spent just a quarter of an hour at Al Bayt.

And it wasn’t just fans who applauded him fervently. When he came off the bench in the 31st minute of the second half, with an evident limp, he applauded him and gave him a warm hug. How to know that you have an important card in you to dream of the round of 16.

Although Ecuador still have the two most demanding matches in this group B – they will face the Netherlands on Friday and four days later they will close the first phase against Senegal – Valencia are not improvising. Why not dream big.

At 33, this striker has plenty of training and experience. After starting at Emelec, he went to Pachuca in Mexico. And from there he took the leap. At a time when the other Valencia, Antonio, shone at Manchester United, Enner tried his luck at West Ham United and Everton, but never really broke through.

But resilience is about life. Now, after a brief stop in Tigres de Monterrey, he is the top scorer in the Turkish SuperLiga, with 13 goals for leaders FenerbahceHe already had three World Cup goals on his resume. Is that he had scored three goals in Brazil 2014 -one against Switzerland and another double against Honduras-. Now he has doubled the bet. And he makes Ecuador dream big.

“Enneeeeer, Enneeeeer, Enneeeeer…”, rang out to Al Bayt as the Ecuadorian players came to greet their heads where they were in the majority. For an instant, the world was at his feet.