Spectacular World Cup qualification
Keeper sees red twice and plays through
01/28/2022, 10:00 a.m
Brazil has long been a World Cup participant. So time for the spectacle. They deliver, albeit rather involuntarily, in the qualifier against Ecuador. Keeper Alisson is sent off twice and plays through. Ecuador is happy about a 1:1. Uruguay is also back on course.
After the last four defeats in a row, Uruguay once again draws new hopes for the World Cup thanks to goalkeeper Luis Suárez. The striker from Spain’s soccer champions Atlético Madrid scored the goal of the evening (50th) in a 1-0 (0-0) win in Paraguay, the two-time world champion now has one of the four South American direct tickets to the finals in December in Qatar in his hand .
Before that, in the top game of the fourth to last round, the surprise third-placed Ecuador – with Bundesliga pros Piero Hincapie (Leverkusen) and Carlos Gruezo (Augsburg) in the starting line-up – was unable to inflict the first defeat on record world champions Brazil, who had already qualified for Qatar, and approached the 1st place :1 (0:1) and now 24 points but a good part of the World Cup. In the Eliminatorias, the Seleção, in which superstar Neymar was injured, is undefeated for 31 games.
Historical VAR decisions
In the heated game, in addition to the goalscorer Casemiro (6th) for Brazil and Felix Torres (75th) for the home side, the focus was primarily on referee Wilmar Roldan. The Colombian reversed four tricky decisions after looking at the VAR monitor, including two dismissals against Seleção goalkeeper Alisson. “I think this is the first time it has happened in football history,” said the Liverpool keeper after the game. “It also shows how important VAR is in football.” However, red cards against Ecuador goalkeeper Alexander Dominguez after 14 minutes and against Brazil right-back Emerson Royal just five minutes later stood.
Behind Brazil (36 points), Argentina (32), who have also already bought their World Cup ticket, remain unbeaten after a 2-1 (2-1) win in Chile – now in 28 games in all competitions. In addition to captain Lionel Messi, who had just recovered from corona disease, the reigning South American champions were also missing coach Lionel Scaloni and two other players after positive tests for corona.
Although the Gauchos conceded a goal for the first time in six Eliminatorias games after twice being in the lead by their European stars Angel Di Maria (9th) and Lautaro Martinez (34th), the interim equalization by Ben Brereton (20th) was not enough for Chile and Leverkusen’s Charles Aranguiz. And so the fight for the fourth direct ticket and fifth place, which guarantees the play-offs, remains open. Between fourth-placed Urus (19) and penultimate Paraguay (13) who have not scored in six games are Colombia and Peru (17), who meet directly on Friday, Chile (16) and Bolivia, who round off the 15th matchday at bottom Venezuela .