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Sport for Qatar, reporting before the opening match of the 2022 World Cup (Photo: Paz Hasdaei Video editing: Tal Reznik)
The 2022 World Cup opened tonight (Sunday) with a VAR drama that raised many doubts, until it became clear that the referee's decision was correct, and later the meeting between Qatar and Ecuador became a one-man show: Aner Valencia.
The team from South America won 0:2 and made Qatar the first host in history to lose the first game of the home tournament.
By the way, in the second half you could see serious baldness in the stands of the fans from Qatar, most of whom left the stadium long before the final whistle.
An amusing incident was recorded during the game when an Ecuadorian fan teased the Qataris and signaled to them that "money can't buy everything".
One of Qatar's fans really didn't like this teasing and was furious with the fan, who tried to calm him down.
love the world cup
Aner Valencia (Photo: Reuters)
the numbers
* For the first time in history, the first goal of a World Cup is scored from the penalty spot.
Ener Valencia signed this achievement.
* Valencia, Ecuador's all-time top scorer, scored a brace in Qatar and reached 37 goals for the national team and five in the World Cup - a record for an Ecuadorian player.
* Valencia scored Ecuador's last three goals in the 2014 World Cup, so he now has five consecutive goals for his team in the World Cup.
The record belongs to Eusebio (Portugal 1966), Paolo Rossi (Italy 1982) and Oleg Salenko (Russia 1994) who scored six consecutive goals for their national teams.
* His penalty, by the way, was the first that Ecuador received in the various World Cups, and this is its fourth tournament.
* Valencia joined a distinguished list of the first goalscorers in the World Cup tournaments, including the Germans Jürgen Klinsmann (1994) and Philipp Lahm (2006), the Senegalese Papa Bubba Diop (2002) and also the Brazilian Marcelo with an own goal in 2014.
* In Russia 2018 there was not even one goal disallowed with the help of VAR, and here in Qatar 2022 it happened after less than three minutes.
* Ecuador has hope: since 1986, every team that has won an opening game of a World Cup has reached at least the quarter-finals.
Only one host did not pass the first stage and that was France in 1930.
* Ecuador has kept a clean sheet in its last seven games.
11 hours and 36 minutes have passed since the Argentinian Julian Alvares scored against Mola in March.
* As mentioned, Qatar is the first host to lose its opening game.
This has never happened in the entire history of the World Cup.
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Ener Valencia
Ecuador national team
World Cup 2022