A genuine shock — the model gave Ivory Coast just 27% before kick-off, and they beat Ecuador anyway. The decisive moment came late, in the 90th minute.
Expected goals race
Ivory CoastEcuador● goal
Cumulative expected goals, minute by minute. ESPN's free feed has no xG, so each shot's xG is estimated with a naive distance-and-angle logistic model fitted on shot coordinates from the play-by-play.
Pre-match Elo: Ivory Coast 1780, Ecuador 1860. The model priced this Ivory Coast 27% / draw 25% / Ecuador 48%, most likely score 1–1. A plausible-but-not-favoured outcome. The result moves 31 Elo points from Ecuador to Ivory Coast — that flows straight into the next round of tournament simulations.
Timeline
28'YELLOWSeko Fofana (Côte d'Ivoire) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
38'YELLOWFranck Kessie (Côte d'Ivoire) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
40'YELLOWGuéla Doué (Côte d'Ivoire) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
56'SUBSubstitution, Ecuador. Nilson Angulo replaces Alan Minda.
90'GOALGoal! Côte d'Ivoire 1, Ecuador 0. Amad Diallo (Côte d'Ivoire) left footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Wilfried Singo.