It wasn't that long ago – June 19, 1993. For the first time in its soccer history Ecuador had qualified for the quarterfinals of a Copa America.
That tournament was hosted in Ecuador and the opponent at that stage was the same one as Thursday's: the USA. La Tri wound up winning that match 2-0 on goals by Raúl Avilés and ex-LA Galaxy forward Eduardo “El Tanque” Hurtado.
Here we are, 23 years later, and Ecuador will once again be staring down the Americans with a trip to the semifinals hanging in the balance. But there's more at stake for Ecuador than merely advancing to the next round of an international competition.
La Tri wants to prove that its standing as the top team in South American World Cup qualifying is no fluke. Ecuador wants to show that it's the same team that humiliated Lionel Messi and Argentina in Buenos Aires with a 2-0 road win back on October 8, 2015. They did it by keeping the Argentines off balance with the speed and versatility of a potent attack that seems to have lost a little bit of steam this year.
And that's been accompanied by a bit more criticism from those who believe that those results should be the norm and that a recent 2-2 home draw against Paraguay or a 3-1 loss to Colombia in World Cup qualifying amount to subpar performances. In fact, Ecuador's head coach, Gustavo Quinteros, declared war on the Ecuadorean press just before the Copa America, calling the team's critics "ignorant" and accusing them of "knowing nothing about soccer."
Thursday's match against the USA is a chance for Quinteros to rub it in the nose of those same skeptics, who were all expecting the locker room to turn on him by now. But it never happened.
"The USA is going to be a little more complicated [than in a May 25 friendly], and on top of that it's the home team [in the quarterfinal]," he said in the lead-up to Thursday's match in Seattle. "They're going to be a more complicated opponent than the team we met at the beginning of the tournament [USA beat Ecuador 1-0]."
"It's a final for us. Win or go home. There's no other way," said midfielder Christian Noboa. "We want to give the country some happiness. We took an important step making it to the quarterfinals, but we want more."
Although their Copa America meeting will have many of the same protagonists from that May 25 friendly, Noboa feels there's a good chance the story plays out in their favor.
"It's going to be totally different from what happened in the friendly," Noboa continued. "We've been improving [in recent matches]. It depends on us committing the fewest errors possible and taking advantage up top [in attack]."
Noboa has reason to be optimistic. The team rose to the occasion when it was down 2-0 against Peru in the second group match, storming back to tie 2-2 and staying alive in the competition. The two Valencias -- Enner and Antonio -- are connecting again. Left winger Jefferson Montero is back to being his dynamic self on the left wing and Noboa is as masterful as he's ever been as the "kaiser" in the middle of the field.
If Ecuador can come out with the same edge and motivation they showed against Peru and Haiti, we'll be talking about an Ecuador that can even shoot for a lot more than a Copa America semifinal.
