Ecuador's chance of reaching the knockout rounds looked slim against an unchanged Germany side that scored in the second minute and had already clinched the group. But La Tricolor broke through their group stage malaise with a late winner to join Germany and Ivory Coast in the knockouts.

ECUADOR 2, GERMANY 1

Ecuador scored immediately after going down through Nilson Angulo's terrific long range effort in the 9th minute before Gonzalo Plata redirected a Kevin Rodriguez header following a corner kick into the roof of Manuel Neuer's net which was nothing more than they deserved after a long spell of pressure late in the second half.

We're gonna take a quick aside for a mini Third Yellow segment and look at the build up to Leroy Sane's goal in the second minute...because how is this not a high boot?

The fact that Aleksandar Pavlovic is gaining possession of the ball after chesting it up from a throw in is irrelevant. You can not play a ball with your foot that high because if someone like Pedro Vite tries to legally head the ball you're endangering the safety of an opponent.

This is not a red card offense in my opinion, but certainly cautionable due to the fact contact was made, and I am stunned that VAR didn't intervene here. We have a baseline for these things that has been set in stone after a certain 2010 World Cup final foul that wasn't red carded and I don't get this one being allowed.

The soccer gods rightly intervened here though and saw justice done for Ecuador to get their very deserved win.

IVORY COAST 2, CURACAO 0

The Elephants secured their second place finish with a comprehensive but not overly dominant win over the Blue Sharks.

Nicolas Pepe scored in the 7th minute finishing off a squared pass from Yan Diomande at close range before sealing the game in the 64th minute when he picked out the far corner of Eloy Room's net after a brilliant through ball into the box from Ibrahim Sangare.

Curacao generated the first moment of danger when Tahith Chong fired a long range shot that forced Yahia Fofana to parry it away in the second minute. A late free kick deep down the right wing saw Leandro Bacuna's initial header go straight up for brother Juninho to follow up only to see the chance go over the bar.

Ivory Coasted needed just three shots on goal out of seven to deny Curacao a dream spot in the knockouts as the Blue Sharks could only muster two of their eleven shots on goal, losing the xG battle 1.31 to 0.50.

The Blue Sharks might be eliminated but we will always have the legendary performance of Room against Ecuador and Livano Comenencia's 21st minute equalizer against Germany to fondly remember their first World Cup appearance by.

GROUP OVERVIEW

This group went fairly academic in the end though Ecuador certainly took the hardest path imaginable to get into third place.

Germany awaits one of the third place teams, with the most likely scenario being Paraguay out of Group D. Ivory Coast awaits the runner up from Group I which is currently Norway though they're tied with France on points. Ecuador potentially is going down to Mexico though those odds are dependent on Scotland being eliminated on three points in the tiebreaker table but that would be a tremendous Round of 32 matchup.

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