Ecuador 2, Poland 0: For some reason, the Poles were favored. Other than the home crowd advantage accruing from playing in a neighboring country, it's hard to see why. Poland didn't do anything in the last World Cup, other than defeating an American team that was clearly overconfident, didn't qualify for Euro 2004, and they qualified for this Cup from a very easy group; in fact, the other good team in that group, England, beat them twice. And yet they were picked to finish second in the group, and were even seen as possibly threatening the Germans for the top.

On the other hand, coming into the W.C. Ecuador was dissed as a lightweight, a team that took advantage of altitude to create an overwhelming home field advantage in qualifying, but their road losses to Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, the other qualifiers from South America, were by one goal each; I think it's safe to say that it would be hard for most of the teams in this tournament to beat Brazil and Argentina at home, then go to Buenos Aires or Sao Paulo and lose by a single goal. Like Poland, Ecuador went 1-2 in 2002, but they were in all three matches, and their final win, over Croatia, eliminated a semifinalist from the previous tournament. One would think being the third best team from South America would have earned them some respect.

Anyway, Poland hit the post a bunch of times, but were otherwise listless, and Ecuador can probably advance to the next round with a win over Costa Rica next week. I have a couple of friends who are Ecuadorian, so congrats to them.