The players received “a very hard shock” to know that they would play without an audience

The technical director of the Ecuadorian soccer team, the Argentine Gustavo Alfaro, said on Tuesday that playing without the presence of fans in the stands against the Brazilian team is “a very hard impact” for the players. Ecuador receives the auriverde this Thursday with the possibility of getting closer to Qatar if it achieves a positive result against the best team in the tie, which has not known defeat in the thirteen matches it has played.

“I would be lying if I didn’t confess that it was a very hard impact for the players to find out that we would have to play without an audience. For us it was a blow. There was a beautiful passion for the game. I live and walk the streets of Quito, and a lot of people proudly approached me to tell me that they had gotten a ticket. I am a soccer coach, I cannot say what is right or wrong in a pandemic; I have lost friends, family and people close to me, people we had a good time with and overnight they were gone”, the trainer of the Tri was honest at a press conference.

“Then one saw that the world began to recover a certain normality thanks to vaccination, and I told President (Guillermo) Lasso when he was here, and in that sense one sees that Ecuador has complied with 82.6% of the population already vaccinated. It is difficult for me to talk about this, I am afraid of being accused of being trivial”, added the gaucho.

Alfaro points out that they seek to “give people a space of happiness” by recovering the “most genuine feeling” through the positive sensations that soccer produces.

“We cannot change people’s lives, but we can give them a space of happiness, which is what we have sought from day one; when I received the refusal of some players to come to the national team. I didn’t know what happened. Our search was to recover the most genuine feeling, to get closer to people who, in the midst of happiness and sadness, live football with a passion that is difficult to understand. Obviously we need the people, the contagion of the public, that permanent encouragement, the ‘yes we can’ before each fight we have on the field. FEF was very strict in enforcing the protocol inside the house, with ourselves. They caught our attention when Michael Estrada came over to hug the people (after the second goal against Parguay),” he explained.

Finally, the coach assures that playing without an audience “is a blow to the illusion of the player”, however, “if there is something that this squad has, it is a huge heart”.

At the request of the president of Ecuador, the national COE will review its decision on the public ban for the duel against Brazil in Quito

“This National Team can play well or badly, but it will never negotiate its search. As Fito Páez’s song says, before Brazil we wanted to go out and offer our hearts”, he concluded.

Despite the request of the FEF to have a reduced capacity in the Rodrigo Paz Delgado stadium, the national COE did not approve this. However, the President of the Republic, Guillermo Lasso, ordered that the request be reviewed again. The final opinion of the government body will be known on Wednesday afternoon. (D)