Ecuador

Ecuador is a Pacific-coast South American republic of approximately 18 million people. Its constitutional capital, Quito, sits at 2,850 metres in the Andes below the Pichincha volcano, the highest capital city in the world, while the larger port city of Guayaquil is the country's commercial and industrial centre. Ecuador also administers the Galapagos Islands, a UNESCO World Heritage Site roughly 1,000 kilometres offshore. The economy has been fully dollarised since 2000, when the US dollar replaced the sucre, and rests heavily on oil exports, agriculture (Ecuador is the world's largest banana exporter) and remittances.

Politically, Ecuador has faced persistent instability in recent years, with a state of emergency declared in 2024 following an escalation in organised-crime violence. President Daniel Noboa was re-elected to a full term in April 2025, defeating Luisa Gonzalez in a run-off with 55.7% of the vote, and continues to govern under heavy security pressure.

Ecuador's La Tri are competing at the 2026 FIFA World Cup for a fourth time, having qualified comfortably through CONMEBOL. A goalless draw with debutants Curacao in Kansas City, in which Curacao goalkeeper Eloy Room made a World Cup record 15 saves, Left their group in doubt, but Ecuador beat four-time champions Germany 2-1 at a sold-out MetLife Stadium (80,663) to reach the knockout stage for only the second time in their history, after 2006. The match fell during the closing days of a group stage that set an all-time World Cup attendance record of 3,605,357, beating the 3,587,538 drawn across the USA in 1994. The earlier Ecuador v Curacao fixture had also drawn attention as a case study in FIFA's dynamic ticket pricing, with Category 1 seats rising 22% from initial pricing, evidence cited in the EU's Article 102 antitrust complaint against FIFA's ticketing model.