Honduras vs Ecuador Prediction - Will Ecuador Be Able To Defeat Honduras?

Next Friday, Ecuador will go head-head with Honduras at Arena da Baixada in Curitiba on a match of the utmost importance for both teams if they both still want to nurture their ambitions of walking through to next stage of the competition.

Honduras opening match on the World Cup certainly didn’t work as they were expecting. In fact, the team’s first-half performance was fairly positive and if it weren’t for the red card shown to Wilson Palacios and the late first-half penalty goal from Benzema, the story of the match could have been completely different. Honduras showed great attitude during the match and also relied on an inspired display by their goalkeeper Noel Valladares, who managed to delay the French team’s goal as long as he could.

The team’s manager, the Colombian Luis Suarez, displayed his team in a classic 4-4-2 approach with all lines playing very close from each other in order to reduce the space available to the French to play between lines.

The match against Ecuador will be of major importance for the Honduras side as a defeat would throw them away from the competition immediately. Ecuador might be considered, in theory, an easier team to beat than France, nevertheless, it will certainly not be a walk in the park for the Honduran team, which will not be able to count on one of their most experienced and skilled footballers, Wilson Palacios.

As for Ecuador, the match against Honduras will pose a good opportunity for them to bounce back from that disappointing last minute defeat against Switzerland last Sunday. The South American team had plenty of opportunities to sentence the match but they failed to materialize them and ended up allowing a goal (in injury time) to Real Sociedad’s forward Seferovic.

The Ecuadorian manager, Reinaldo Rueda, presented an hybrid 4-2-3-1 approach, with Noboa as a deep-lying playmaker and Enner Valencia, Antonio Valencia and Montero providing support to their front man, Felipe Caicedo. For the match against Honduras, Reinaldo Rueda might try to expand his front line by placing James Ayovi side-by-side with Caicedo, changing the 4-2-3-1 approach to a more classic 4-4-2 scheme.

For the match against Honduras, Reinaldo Rueda will surely be able to count on all his players since there are not any names at the injury list so far.

Ecuador are firm favourites to win next Friday’s match, especially because of their players’ greater experience and due to quality of the team as a whole, which is far superior to Honduras currently.

Honduras

Stats: W-1 L-3 D-1

Recent Form - LDLLW

Ecuador

Stats: W-1 L-2 D-2

Recent Form - LDLDW

Possible Line-ups

Honduras (4-4-2) -Valladares, Beckeles, Figueroa, Bernardez, Izaguirre, Espinoza, Boniek Garcia, Garrido, Marvin Chavez, Costly, Bengtson.

Ecuador (4-4-2) - A. Dominguez - Paredes - Guagua - Erazo - A. Valencia - Noboa - Montero - J. Ayovi - W. Ayovi - Caicedo - E. Valencia

Prediction: Honduras 1 Ecuador 2