Ecuador Team

England Team

England travelled even higher for their next 'warm-up' friendly when this game was played some 9,300 feet above sea-level, and again the morale and spirit of an excellent England squad was lifted even further by another good win.

As in Colombia, the match was preceded by a reserve England XI winning against a local side. When the 'main meal' was served, England began in the confident way that we had come to expect. Another early goal gave England the start they wanted. On another uneven pitch and in a warm temperature, Bobby Moore and Alan Mullery combined in midfield to feed Keith Newton on the right wing. When the cross came over, Francis Lee was at the far post to flick the ball home.

Ecuador were a better team than Colombia and Peñaherrera, Carrera and Larrea were particularly skilful. They, too, played the short-passing game but England had now learned how to deal with this style. Bobby Charlton, Alan Ball and Martin Peters always kept the attack well-supplied and up-front, Lee and Geoff Hurst were always sharp.

A bad mistake by Ball almost gave Ecuador an equalizer when he allowed Peñaherrera a clear run at goal. But Gordon Banks, so impressive, rushed out and blocked his shot with a fine, diving save at his feet. Ball then almost made amends before the break when he dived headlong at a cross by Lee. The ball flew just over the bar with the Ecuador defence flat-footed.

After the interval both sides made two substitutions with Rodríguez and Cabezas coming on for the home side and Brian Kidd and David Sadler replacing Lee and Charlton, respectively. Charlton had run himself out. Kidd, who was out of the 22-man squad for the World Cup, immediately made his mark and in the 75th minute he scored the decisive, second goal when he dived bravely to head home a Peters centre. 

Earlier, Ecuador had put some pressure on England with Peñaherrera lobbing just over and Banks making another world-class save from substitute Rodríguez. 

The two friendlies were an excellent test for England and they had come through with 'flying colours'. The preparation had gone very well and they were now ready for their first game in the Mexico World Cup finals.
  

England literally went up into the clouds for this final warm-up match before the start of their World Cup defence. Quito is more than 9,000 feet above sea-level, and the ball swerved around like a boomerang. Francis Lee gave England the lead and was then substituted in the seventieth minute by Brian Kidd, who scored a second goal. Ironically, Kidd had been told he was one of six players not included in the final World Cup squad of twenty-two. It was during a stop-over in Bogotá on the flight back to Mexico that Bobby Moore was arrested on a trumped-up jewel-theft charge following an allegation that he had stolen a bracelet from a hotel shop. He was held under house-arrest for five days before the British ambassador negotiated his release. It would be another two years before his name was finally cleared. Nobody who knew Bobby ever doubted his innocence.
  

Source Notes

TheFA.com
Original newspaper reports
Rothman's Yearbooks
Mike Payne's England: The Complete Post-War Record (Breedon Books Publishing Company, Derby, U.K., 1993)
Norman Giller, Football Author
____________________

CG