Gustavo Quinteros fired as Ecuador's manager, Jorge Celico put in charge
Gustavo Quinteros will no longer be feeling the heat of the Equator.
On Tuesday night, exactly one week after Ecuador's hopes of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup were largely extinguished by virtue of a 2-1 defeat to Peru on home soil, the Federacion Ecuatoriana de Futbol announced that Jorge Celico is being put in charge of La Tricolor's last two 2018 World Cup qualifiers "in the face of indifference" from Quinteros.
In other words, Quinteros was fired.
F.E.F encarga como DT de la Tri para 2 partidos finales a @JorgeCelico ante indiferencia del D.T Quinteros cuando se apeló a su sensibilidad
— FEF Ecuador (@FEFecuador) September 13, 2017
The FEF argued that Quinteros ignored the board of directors' call to resign after failing to meet the goal he set himself of winning three of Ecuador's last three 2018 World Cup qualifiers. La Tricolor is eighth in the standings following losses to Brazil and Peru, and, while qualification is still possible, the national team must win away to Chile and at home to Argentina to have any chance of flying to Russia.
According to El Comercio, the FEF made a proposal to Quinteros in which he would abandon his position as Ecuador's manager. He reportedly met with one of the federation's delegates to reach an economic agreement. Indemnifying La Tricolor's coaching team will apparently cost $1 million, half of which will be put in Quinteros' pocket.
It's fair to say that Quinteros is a victim of his own success. Ecuador kicked off 2018 World Cup qualifying by winning its first four games, which included a 2-0 victory in Argentina. But things then started going wrong. There are questions over whether the altitude - Quito, the capital, is located at 2,850 metres above sea level - is still an advantage with so many of La Tricolor's players employed by European clubs.
Regardless of the answer, Quinteros was overly dependent on a core who, when out of form, caused Ecuador to suffer. Christian Noboa, Enner Valencia, Jefferson Montero, and Felipe Caicedo are part of that core. The lack of a first-choice 'keeper and defensive pace remains problematic, too.
In Celico, Ecuador will be ending 2018 World Cup qualifying with a manager who is the general director of the country's juvenile teams and whose resume includes Universidad Catolica.
Should Ecuador finish eighth, it will be La Tricolor's worst campaign since the one-group, two-year-marathon format was first implemented in South America for 1998 World Cup qualifying.