Ecuador shock Germany to squeeze into knockout round - Curaçao blue wave ends in defeat to Ivory Coast

EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey (AP):

Gonzalo Plata poked the ball past Manuel Neuer in the 77th minute and Ecuador advanced to the knockout stage of the World Cup by rallying for a 2-1 win over Germany yesterday.

Germany, who clinched first place in Group E with victories in their first two games, went ahead on Leroy Sané's second-minute goal. Nilson Angulo scored Ecuador's first goal of the tournament in the ninth minute.

Plata, who took a kick to the head when Germany scored their early goal, keyed Ecuador's great escape after Pedro Vite's corner kick was nodded on by Kevin Rodríguez. Neuer, the 40-year-old Germany goalkeeper who came out of international retirement for the World Cup, was about to grasp the ball when Plata raised his left foot and with a toe put the ball into the net.

Ecuador coach Sebastián Beccacece ran to the stands to celebrate.

Ecuador finished third in the group with four points and advanced past the group stage for the second time, the first since a round-of-16 game in 2006.

Germany's winning streak was stopped at 11 games, one shy of the team record set in 1979-80. The four-time champions will play their round-of-32 game Monday at Foxborough, Massachusetts, most likely against Paraguay, Australia or Sweden.

A crowd of 80,663 at MetLife Stadium that was mostly in Ecuador's yellow boosted attendance to a record 3,587,539 in the 56th game of the expanded tournament, one more than the 52 matches for the 1994 tournament in the US.

Sané put Germany ahead about one minute, 50 seconds in with his 18th international goal. Aleksandar Pavlović had chested the ball and kicked Vite following Nathaniel Brown's throw-in but there was no foul call by American referee Tori Penso. Pavlović passed to Florian Wirtz, who centred to Sané just inside the penalty area.

Angulo scored a short time later after Felix Nmecha lost the ball in midfield to Vite. He passed it to Angulo, who dribbled toward goal and beat Neuer to the far post from just outside the area.

Penso originally awarded Germany a penalty kick less than 30 seconds into the second half after Joel Ordóñez took down Kai Havertz, but after a video review ruled Sané had first fouled Vite.

In the group’s other game, Ivory Coast got goals from Nicolas Pépé in each half to get by Curaçao 2-0 to advance to the World Cup knockout round for the first time in the West African team’s history. 

Les Éléphants have crashed the party and made it out of their group for the first time in four World Cup appearances.

Ivory Coast beat Ecuador 1-0 in their tournament opener — at the same Philadelphia stadium as yesterday’s game — and lost to Germany in their Group E second game.

Ivory Coast will play June 30 against either France or Norway — whoever are the runners-up in Group I.

Curaçao needed to win but instead failed to become the smallest nation to qualify for the knockout stages.

Teams P W D L GF GA GD Pts

Germany 3 2 0 1 10 4 6 6

Côte d'Ivoire 3 2 0 1 3 2 1 6

Ecuador 3 1 1 1 2 2 0 4

Curaçao 3 0 1 2 1 9 -8 1