2022 World Cup: Qatar vs Ecuador prediction, odds and preview

At the Al Bayt Stadium on Sunday afternoon, the opening match of the highly contentious 2022 World Cup pits hosts Qatar against Ecuador in Group A.

The South American nation returns to the World Cup finals after an eight-year absence, while Felix Sanchez Bas’s team is playing for the first time in their history on the largest international platform.

The 2022 hosts enjoy the distinguished honor of opening the latest World Cup, as local leagues take a break to allow the world’s best to gather in the Middle East, just a week after Sepp Blatter admitted that Qatar should not have been given the tournament in the first place.

Playing against the 2010 World Cup finalists the Netherlands and Africa Cup of Nations champions Senegal is definitely a baptism of fire for the 50th-ranked country in the world, but they have participated in four friendly matches as a warm-up and have won all four of them since October.

The Maroon are now aiming to become the first World Cup debutants to win their opening match since Senegal defeated then-defending champions France in 2002. In recent weeks, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, and most recently Albania have all succumbed to Qatar’s superiority, with star striker Almoez Ali scoring the only goal against the latter.

However, Sanchez Bas’s team wants to avoid becoming just the second World Cup host nation to fail to make it past the group stages.

Not only Qatar but Ecuador was also involved in controversy before the start of the World Cup after fielding an ineligible player during qualification. Ecuador was reportedly threatened with elimination from the competition.

However, nothing of the such happened, and the South American country is currently preparing to return to the game’s grand finale after being rejected from Russia 2018, but generating waves at the World Cup has not been their strong suit thus far.

Since the beginning of June, Gustavo Alfaro’s team has played six games, recording six clean sheets, but they have only scored twice, and four of those six games have ended in a scoreless draw.