New Delhi: Ecuador failed to break the deadlock against FIFA World Cup debutants Curacao on Sunday. The match ended goalless with 15 shots on target from the South American side—all of which were saved by the opponent goalkeeper Eloy Room. With this, Curacao secured an historic point at the world’s biggest football tournament.
The post-match statistics pointed to a one-sided contest—75 per cent possession, 593 completed passes and several missed chances that tested Curacao’s goalkeeper again and again. Yet the scoreline remained unchanged because Room simply refused to be beaten.
Before the kick-off whistle, at the Kansas City Stadium, Curacao seemed to be heading towards a predictable end against a solid Ecuador side. Especially after the 7-1 thrashing at the hands of a rampaging Germany in their opening game of the tournament, nobody expected Curacao to match up to an established Ecuador.
Room, however, chose to tear the script apart and produced nothing less than a performance of a lifetime.
Saves from left, right and centre
At 37, a goalkeeper is expected to rely more on experience and positioning, rather than the agility or reflexes that marked their younger years in the business. On Sunday, Room turned the tables on traditional football wisdom. He faced a barrage of shots on goal—strikes from distance, whipped in headers and everything in between. And every single time, Room stood there like an impenetrable wall.
By the time the final whistle blew on a hard-earned 0-0 draw for his team, Room made 15 outrageous saves to secure a historic point for the island nation, which has a population of just 1,56,000—fewer than your standard Delhi suburb.
He is now second in the all-time FIFA World Cup record for most saves, just behind USA’s Tim Howard, who made 16 saves against Belgium in 2014. But while Howard needed 120 minutes (including extra time) for his record, Room’s 15 all came within the regulated 90 minutes.
Also read: Germany tops the FIFA World Cup all-time goals-conceded list. It shows longevity
‘I think I need a statue’
His numbers from the night will forever adorn his career statistics sheet. 10 diving saves, 10 stops from point-blank range inside the box, 16 recoveries, and 51 total touches. Statistically, he alone prevented 2.48 goals. But statistics so often fail to capture the challenge overcome in its entirety. At least they will never capture the way Room lunged to tip Enner Valencia’s searing shot early in the game around the post, or how he smothered Moises Caicedo’s vicious second-half strike to maintain the hard-earned clean sheet.
When the referee blew the final whistle, an utterly spent Room collapsed to his knees before being buried under a mountain of ecstatic teammates.
“I think I need a statue in Curacao, I think now,” Room laughed afterward, his jersey soaked in sweat and pride in equal measure. “It means everything. It feels like a victory, you know, for us. But now it means a lot. It’s the first point in the World Cup for us. So it’s unreal if you know the journey where we come from and we’re now here. And today we showed we have a real heart with the team. So it’s an unbelievable feeling.”
He has given the smallest country to ever grace the World Cup a night that they will talk about for generations. While Curacao is scheduled to face the Ivory Coast on 26 June, Ecuador will face Germany on the same day.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)