Ecuador have beaten Costa Rica’s Los Ticos 3-0 in their Group A match in Hamburg on Thursday.

Ecuador controlled the match throughout, with Carlos Tenorio scoring the opener in the 8th minute, with Southampton striker Agustin Delgado adding early in the second with a strike from substitute Ivan Kaviedes in injury-time.

Ecuador started the game much the stronger team, with chances right from the start, and took the lead after only 8 minutes from a header by Carlos Tenorio, who also scored against Poland.

Tenorio latched onto a cross from Segundo Castilla in the penalty area, which found Tenorio plenty of space and he headed past the Costa Rica keeper Jose Porras to make it 1-0.

Ecuador then dominated the first-half, giving no space to Costa Rica and harassing their goal.

Edison Mendez had a strike on goal from a long-range free-kick which went high, then Luis Valencia forced the keeper into a fine clearance towards the end of the half.

A header from Douglas Sequeira was the closest the Costa Rica came to scoring in the first-half, but he failed to get the shot on-target from close range.

Southampton’s Agustin Delgado had the perfect chance to double the score when he was open in front of goal, but he couldn’t connect on Mendez’s pass.

Costa Rica came out for the second-half with far more intent, and finally the balance of play was retored, with both teams having attempts on goal.

Ecuador still looked the team more likely to score, with Castilla and Valencia pushing the Costa Rican defence and placing some lovely balls in for the strikers.

Delgado doubled the score-line in the 54th minute with a lovely close-range shot, after a lovely chipped pass from Mendez

Mauricio Solis forced a save from Ecuador keeper Cristian Mora for a corner, which the Los Ticos failed to capitalise on.

Former Manchester City and Derby County striker Paolo Wanchope had no service up-front, making any attack’s that the Ticos made ineffective, but with the substitution on of Carlos Hernandez, Costa Rica seemed to have slightly more attacking prowess.

With fifteen minutes to go Alvaro Saborio had a tame effort go wide for Costa Rica, before Ecuador started to show their dominance again.

Patricio Urrutia played a great ball into Mendez who’s shot was blocked in the last fifteen of the match and Saborio hit the woodwork after lobbing the ball beautifully over Mora, but took too long to drop, and bounced off the far post.

Apart from some long-range shots from The Ticos, it was all Ecuador in the final minutes of the match, who looked happy to sit on their two-goal advantage until the final whistle.

But in injury-time substitute Ivan Kaviedes scored a third for Ecuador in the 92nd minute with a lovely strike and to knock Costa Rica out of the tournament.