Andy’s Ecuador Diary – Part Two

I am now well into my second and final week here in Ecuador and what a trip it has been!

The highlight of my week was definitely seeing Ecuador play Brazil in the Copa America on Wednesday. Whilst I wasn’t actually at the game seeing it on TV with my host family and cheering on my newly adopted country was great fun even if Ecuador did end up losing the match 4-2. Despite being an Englishman I found myself really getting behind the Ecuadorian’s with further incentive being the small bet I had on them to win the game at 14-1 with Bet 365 which unfortunately didn’t come through!

In other news, I watched the team I have been coaching in action on Thursday in a thrilling match in which they were 4-3 victors! It was interesting to see how style of play varied to that of England, Spain and other countries. One thing I noticed is how much deeper defences stay on the pitch during play and generally that teams favour the good old-fashioned counter-attack as apposed to slow build up play. The victory for the lads meant qualification into a city-wide tournament in Quito and naturally head coach Pablo rewarded them with very authentic Ecuadorian food after the game…sausage and chips.

During my stay in Quito a trip to the coast didn’t go amiss too and I was very suprised to find South American beaches exactly how you expect them to be….full of beautiful women strutting around in bikinis and Ecuadorian men having gigantic games of beach football.

As I head back to England on Sunday I can hand on heart say I have loved every minute of it. I met some great people, enjoyed coaching the kids and had some very interesting discussions about football with the City’s local taxi drivers!

Stay with La Liga Blog as we provide you all the build up and reaction to the start of this season’s Spanish football season. For the meantime below are selection of photo’s taken during my stay here.

Adios and thank you for reading!

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