It’s highly unlikely that there will be room for both Ecuador and Senegal in the World Cup knockout stage, making Tuesday’s Group A finale effectively a play-in match for the round of 16.
With the Netherlands leading the group entering the day via tiebreaker and facing already-eliminated host nation Qatar in the other simultaneous finale, the presumption is that one of the group’s other spots in the last 16 will go to one of these two teams. Ecuador (1-0-1, four points) enters with a one-point edge on Senegal (1-1-0, three points), meaning a draw will be good enough for La Tri, while Senegal knows it needs a win to move on in the competition.