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.
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Aner Valencia (Photo: Reuters)
* 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.
* 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.
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Ener Valencia
Ecuador national team
World Cup 2022