3 Seagulls, 1 World Cup game: Ecuador make Brighton history

History was made in the opening game of the 2022 World Cup and not just because Qatar were quite possibly the worst nation ever to appear in the tournament. No, the big news was that three Brighton players appeared in the same game at a World Cup for the first time ever, helping Ecuador to make the perfect start to the competition.

Moises Caicedo and Pervis Estupinan both started at the Al Bayt Stadium. They were joined in the second half by Jeremy Sarmiento, who unbeknownst to Albion supporters has seemingly changed his name to Sar-im-ento at some point in the past week since flying out to Qatar according to the BBC commentators.

The most representatives Brighton have had in a World Cup game before is one. There was further history made when Ecuador rattled through the substitutions towards the end and Estupinan ended up with the armband, becoming the first ever Albion player to captain his country at a World Cup.

Most of the watching world wanted Ecuador to win given the controversial manner in which Qatar had been “awarded” the tournament.

For Brighton fans, those feelings were heightened with many picking Ecuador as their second (or even first) team to support at the World Cup because of the Albion connection.

It did not take long for Estupinan to make his mark on proceedings with the sort of chaotic opening spell which has already made him a firm favourite with the Amex faithful.

Within 60 seconds he had managed to commit a foul. Four minutes later and he swung over a free kick which Qatar’s incredibly entertaining goalkeeper Saad Al Sheeb got in a right mess from.

Two missed punches from Al Sheeb, a bizarre attempt at an overhead kick from an Ecuador player followed by a header into the now empty net from former West Ham striker Enner Valencia led everyone watching to think that the team in yellow had the lead.

Except they didn’t. VAR managed to find an offside in the build up. That spared the blushes of Qatar whilst leading to millions of people around the world questioning whether those rumours about the host nation bribing officials and opponents were actually true.

An Ecuador penalty 10 minutes later put accusations of corruption on the backburner. Al Sheeb was proving to be even more calamitous in goal than Graeme Smith for Brighton in 2009, conceding a penalty when bringing down Valencia in the box. The Ecuador captain converted from 12 yards.

Caicedo took a whack to the knee and then picked up a customary booking in quick succession. That makes it six yellow cards in his past eight matches for club and country. Some going.

When Valencia added a second with a powerful header on 30 minutes, it had the potential to become embarrassing for Qatar. The host nation were making the Albion side of 1997-98 look like prime Brazil 1970.

Their fans were certainly not impressed judging by the numbers who left at half time and did not return. One of the spurious reasons given for awarding the World Cup to Qatar was taking the game to the Arab world.

Well, the game has been taken to them and half the crowd walked out with only 45 minutes played. Playing for Brighton, Caicedo, Estupinan and Sarmiento are of course no strangers to an empty stadium long before the full time whistle.

Qatar did not concede in the second half, even when Sarmiento came on and had a couple of trademark runs with the ball.

Ecuador were by that point playing in second gear with the game already won and Qatar unable to make any inroads towards their opponent’s penalty area.

That meant the second half was pretty dull. Dion Dublin did his best to liven things up by talking absolute shite on commentary, including when Sarmiento was introduced.

You could almost hear the panic in his voice at a bloke who has made two substitute appearances in the Premier League entering the fray, yet Dublin clearly had no idea who he is.

Dublin subsequently took the always-safe route of commenting on Sarmiento’s haircut. “They look like fresh highlights.”

Aside from Dublin channelling his inner fashionista to report on hairstyles, the Albion were talked about more on commentary than they have been ever before on the BBC.

You could probably argue that the word Brighton was even used more than it is when a Seagulls game is shown live on Sky Sports and all the focus tends to be on whoever the Albion are playing.

10 years ago, Brighton were drawing 2-2 with Bristol Rovers in a third tier game played at a rented athletics stadium.

25 years ago, it was a 1-0 defeat to Cardiff City in the fourth tier with 2,085 people watching a “home” game 150-miles away in Gillingham.

Now Brighton were the most represented club on the planet in the opening game of a World Cup finals… cheers Caicedo, Estupinan, Sarmiento and Ecuador.