In England, Ecuador Is Absolutely a Foreign Affair

Had England played Germany, as was possible for this round of 16, the hype might’ve rattled even ancient turtles on the Galapagos.

Instead, England is playing the Galapagos, so in the run-up we’ve been all guinea pigs, race-walking and English referee angst. You know, fluff.

England vs. Ecuador today rates as the biggest game in Ecuador’s history but probably not even the 50th biggest in England’s history, which means it’s better to be Ecuadorean because there’s more joy, with scant advantages to being English, such as a probable win and a possible quelling of ignorance.

A tutorial English TV reporter approached some young English adults with a map of South America, and one by one they could not point out Ecuador, a matter highly reassuring to anyone who might happen to hail from a country with staggering geography incompetence.

As this afternoon and the usual national hyperventilation approach, media outlets have tried to ameliorate the self-centeredness, with some newspapers providing lists of things to know about Ecuador.

Some reporters report clumsily as if all 13 million Ecuadorean citizens eat guinea pigs, while some stipulate that only a smattering of mountain-based Ecuadorean citizens eat guinea pigs, while the Guardian noted that Ecuadoreans ate guinea pigs only back in colonial times.

“It is said to taste like very gamey chicken,” the Guardian specified.

Some say World Cups enhance global understanding. They’re right.

Ecuador’s first Olympic gold-medal winner? That would be Jefferson Perez, in Atlanta in 1996, in race-walking, that sport of admirable restraint.

And Germany’s distance from England in the draw has helped train unfortunate floodlights upon one Graham Poll, Hertfordshire-born referee. Mr. Poll, after all, oversaw the chaotic Australia-Croatia match Thursday night, banishing Croatia’s Josip Simunic only after three yellow cards because Poll wrote down the wrong name upon the second.

Where Poll began the World Cup with the prospect of working the final, he’s evidently headed home.

EXIT POLL, blared the Mirror.

Some say it’s humiliating to the English refereeing image, while others might say there aren’t enough people pondering the English refereeing image to make it qualify as humiliation.

England vs. Ecuador, and we’re talking about a ref.

That, and Quito, Ecuador’s capital, which ranks second behind La Paz, Bolivia, in elevation of world capitals. (That’s constantly noted as Ecuador plays in far-less-elevated Germany.) And Ecuador Coach Luis Fernando Suarez, who gains inspiration from reading about Colin Powell. (Hopefully, avoiding the U.N. part.) And the venerable 19th-century English scientist, Charles Darwin, who played a match in the Galapagos that unearthed important data.

(People still argue about that match.)