World Cup fever in Cuenca

By Jeremiah Reardon

Watching sports played on TV is one of my favorite pastimes. However, for the past couple of decades, I’ve lived without one. In November of 2022, I followed Ecuador’s World Cup matches played in Qatar at the expat pub where I built the bar six years prior and mounted on a wall its flat screen TV.

Burgr Grill Steak House on Calle Federico Proano.

Based on sporting news, I sensed that our national team had the talent to advance in that year’s World Cup. But they lost its third and final group match to Senegal, preventing them from advancing to the knockout stage.

The buildup to World Cup 2026 stretched over months, almost years. First, Ecuador’s team advanced through the South American competitions to qualify, securing our continent’s second place slot. Adding to Ecuador’s chances, the recent World Cup doubled the number of knockout qualifiers, expanding to thirty-two teams.

This year on June 1 I shopped with my wife Belinda in El Vergel’s Supermaxi. Customers and employees alike proudly wore yellow or blue jerseys of the national club. Propped in front of fruit and vegetable tables, jerseys on display sold for thirty and thirty-five dollars apiece. Or you could purchase a soccer ball for thirty dollars. From the ceiling of the steel-structure store hung balloons of black and white balls and yellow, blue and red team pennants.

Ecuador Coach Sebastian Beccacece from El Mercurio Newspaper.

Appliances stamped with the team’s logo, including chic-looking popcorn poppers and coffee makers, stood nearby in an altar-like layout crafted from cardboard. Overall, the merchandise display resembled an impromptu fan zone to entice futbol fanatics caught up in World Cup fever.

As we shopped over the next hour my curiosity got the best of me. I said to Belinda, “I wonder when’s the first match?” Back home with the groceries, I opened the computer to look up the World Cup game schedule. The competition began that very day in Mexico City. Mexico beat South Africa, two to zero and elsewhere, in front of a roaring crowd in Estadio Guadalajara, South Korea beat Czechia, two to one. No wonder Supermaxi had buzzed with excitement!

Ecuador played its first game on Sunday June 14 in Philadelphia against The Ivory Coast. I looked forward to seeing on TV the late afternoon match played where I had previously lived with my family.

The expat pub went out of business in the previous year, so I sat with neighbors at Burgr Grill Steak House to see the game. The TV showed exuberant

Tienda Patricia on Calle Jose Escudero Reyes.

Ecuadorians in yellow-team jerseys. They had arrived from New Jersey, New York City and Pennsylvania to fill South Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field. Wide-angle views on the screen showed Center City’s familiar skyline.

About two dozen patrons sat at tables both inside the restaurant and outside on its covered patio as the game began on overhead monitors. My expat friend Tom, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, wandered in and sat at my table. By halftime the restaurant noise level had become too frantic to my taste, so I excused myself.

After paying for a burger and beer, I walked uphill to Avenida Diez de Agosto to find other businesses featuring futbol. The game remained at zero to zero throughout the second half until the ninetieth and ultimate minute, lengthened by several minutes to account for injury delays.

I kept up with the game on various TV’s during my walk, and with the score still zero to zero, I headed home to follow the conclusion on the computer. Initially, the screen displayed a zero to zero score. But in the next moment, The Ivory Coast’s Amad Diallo kicked in a go-ahead goal which won the game, one to zero.

Prancy Pony Cafe on Calle Juan Iniquez.

Afterwards, Ecuador Coach Sebastian Beccacece stated that the result against The Ivory Coast was unfair. “The lack of accuracy, those details, we were far superior in the first half and in the second half we also had a clear chance,” he said after the loss. “Then it comes down to game situations. The Ivory Coast’s right-back’s foul was clearly a red card and that’s where the winning play came from. These are things we can’t control but they end up influencing an unjust result.”

The following day our friend Berenice visited us. She’s a soccer lover from Cuenca. When I expressed regret how Ecuador lost in the 90th minute, she exuberantly declared, “Ecuador is going to beat Germany!”

To upset such a highly ranked European team seemed to me wishful thinking. How could little Ecuador expect to beat powerhouse Germany? However, it deeply impressed me that Berenice had followed the match on TV at her sister’s home.

Maestro Luis Pugo Jimbo shows customer’s restored guitar.

Ecuador next played Curacao in Kansas City, Missouri. For the match against the small Caribbean island nation planted forty miles to the north of Venezuela, another guy and I watched the game from the sidewalk in front of Tienda Patricia.

To attract customers, she had wisely positioned a flat screen TV above the store’s counter. And with plastic tables and chairs added to its entry, her tienda came alive with patrons cheering on the match.

Once again, at intermission I strolled along Diez de Agosto to see if another business beckoned me to watch the second half on its screen. I passed a liquor store with its TV attracting a handful of customers before halting at the Prancing Pony Cafe. The teenage waitress amused me, the only customer, with piercing shrieks as Ecuador’s shots struck close but never scored.

I felt disoriented at the scoreless match’s conclusion while seeing how exuberantly the fans of Curacao cheered. The Netherlands’ protected country had royalty attending the game, and The Netherland’s king, queen and princess, seated in a stadium box above the field, appeared on the screen cheering the tie.

John’s Hamburgers on Calle Alfonso Moreno Mora.

I hadn’t comprehended that for the first time ever Curaçao appeared in the World Cup after coming out on top of its initial group competition in November 2025. And the smallest nation by both population and area to qualify had scored its first World Cup point. (A tie meant that each team scored one point; the winner of a match is awarded 3 points in the standings.)

Discouraged with both a loss and a tie, I worried that Ecuador would miss out on the knockout stage. So, it was with great trepidation I set out with Belinda on the 25^th of June hoping to find a TV showing the much-anticipated match with Germany.

Our day started at my luthier’s workshop north of El Centro. Working on stringed instruments for three years with Maestro Luis Pugo Jimbo, I had no idea that his bulky Sony TV upon which he plays Andean music also broadcasts TV shows.

Seated on a sofa with Belinda, we watched the opening minutes of the match against Germany. Within ten minutes, both teams scored. They played in the Jersey suburbs of New York City, home to many Ecuadorians. With so many fans attired in yellow jersey seen in the stands, you’d think that they played in Quito’s stadium.

Profe Celso Peralta (second from left) with his Level 2 guitar class students.

When we returned home by taxi, the driver had the game on his radio. Belinda went to our apartment while I walked a block to John’s Hamburgers. In its seventy-fifth minute the game played on overhead monitors. As I stood at the counter ordering food, my waitress froze. Her brown eyes lit up with delight as Ecuador scored a tie-breaking goal!

That young woman’s expression was priceless! And as the match continued, Ecuador led for the remaining fifteen minutes plus stoppage time. My waitress, a delivery man awaiting an order, the cook and myself all cheered the victory. It marked the first time that Ecuador defeated a European team in the tournament. And how the fans in Jersey must have felt with a knockout round match assured!

The next day, how excited the city of Cuenca became with the victory over Germany. To my friend I messaged, “Felicidades Berenice y Los Fanaticos del futbol Ecuadoriano! I must admit that I doubted your optimism when you said after the loss to The Ivory Coast that La Tri was going to win against Germany.”

DJ playing music at Inca Ruins park following victory over Germany.

President Daniel Noboa had attended the match with his son and called Friday a national holiday. I arrived that day at 8 A.M. for my guitar class at the Casa de Las Posadas Cultural Center. A security guard told me that the center was closed on account of the victory.

Unbeknownst to me the previous evening, our instructor had posted a message on the class Telegram page. Profe Celso Peralta wrote, “Tomorrow was supposed to be our last day of classes and closing ceremony, but there’s a directive not to use the classrooms. Believe me, I don’t agree with this kind of thing at all, and even worse, suspending activities for a soccer game. I’ll say goodbye, thanking you all for your participation in this year’s music workshops.”

For its knockout match in Mexico City against Mexico’s favored team, I returned to John’s Hamburgers with the wish that the luck Ecuador enjoyed on my earlier visit would extend to this night’s match. When I entered at 8 P. M. the only customers included a young family with two small boys who sat through pregame analysis and weather updates as rain and lightning in Mexico City postponed the start. After ordering a beer, I got in the mood for Chinese food. After paying the waitress, I walked a few blocks to Chifa Asia Restaurant.

Chifa Asia Restaurant on Avenida Remigio Crespo.

The game appeared on a corner TV in its dimly lit dining room. I divided my time between enjoying a generous plate of vegetarian fried rice and watching the game between bites. A step down from the takeout counter, the dining area had only one other table occupied. Sometimes the waitress watched with her other customers while two little boys rolled around on the parquet floor, playing with toy trucks.

In the first half, the match went badly for Ecuador, down two goals to none. It didn’t help that the night before, Mexico’s fans blew horns and made noise outside the Ecuador players’ hotel. I decided that Mexico, obviously the stronger team, would continue to dominate the contest. I left the restaurant at intermission and returned home to follow the game’s progress on the computer.

Ecuador lost that night, but the buildup to the Mexico match had made Cuencanos proud of the national team. It had produced the first knockout match for Ecuador in twenty years. Sure, it was a letdown to lose that evening to Mexico, but they had won an historic victory in advancing to the knockout stage.

In the following days, Cuenca restaurants and stores continued to promote the World Cup with displays of teams’ country flags. My friend Mick told me how he learned world geography by watching World Cup tournaments as a boy growing up in Northern Ireland.

After my thirteen years in Cuenca, I appreciate how important soccer is in the local culture. School children learn about their country’s place in the world and take pride in the accomplishments of the country’s professional athletes playing beyond Ecuador’s borders.

And the more I watch matches, the more I’m learning about the “Beautiful Game’s” finer points. Not having a TV has limited my sports viewing but it gets me out of the house and onto the home turf of Cuenca’s sport fanatics.