Amad Diallo's Late Strike Ends Ecuador's Unbeaten Streak

Ecuador arrived with a streak and left with a sting.

Nineteen games without defeat, stretching back to September 2024, ended in the 90th minute, broken not by a defensive lapse in a scramble but by a move of clarity and conviction from Ivory Coast’s right flank.

Moises Caicedo, stationed in his familiar central role, helped set the tone early. Ecuador played with authority in the first half, snapping into tackles and breaking lines with purpose. Caicedo’s trademark bite in midfield sparked their best opening: he won the ball high, launched the counter, and Alan Minda should have finished. Instead, the crossbar shook.

It wasn’t the only time. John Yeboah had already rattled the frame, Ecuador repeatedly grazing the edge of a breakthrough without quite tearing it open. They pressed, they probed, they dictated. The goal refused to come.

Ivory Coast never disappeared, though. They absorbed the pressure, waited for their moments and, when they emerged after the interval, carried a sharper edge. Elye Wahi offered the warning. Early in the second half he found half a yard and crashed a shot against the bar, turning Ecuador’s earlier frustration back on them.

The game opened up. One end to the other, legs tiring, spaces widening. It began to feel like one of those nights where both sides walk away ruing the woodwork and muttering about what might have been.

Then Wilfried Singo changed the script.

The right-back surged down the flank with real intent, driving past tired challenges, refusing the easy option backwards. His run tore a channel in Ecuador’s shape and, when the ball broke his way, he picked out Amad Diallo in space.

Diallo needed only one touch. A calm, guided, first-time finish, angled into the bottom corner, slid past the goalkeeper and silenced Ecuador’s unbeaten record in a single, precise moment.

Ninety minutes on the clock. One chance taken. Nineteen games gone.

For Ecuador, the run ends not with a collapse but with a fine margin. They had the chances, they had the control for long stretches, and still they walk away empty-handed. The response now matters. Curacao await next weekend, bruised themselves after a 7-1 defeat to Germany earlier on Sunday.

An unbeaten streak is over. The question is whether it was a chapter completed, or the start of a different kind of test.