Ecuador 1-3 Argentina: The Hat-Trick That Saved a World Cup Place (2017)

The Football Documentary Channel · Published 10 October 2026

Ecuador 1-3 Argentina: The Hat-Trick That Saved a World Cup Place (2017)

Ecuador 1-3 Argentina, played at the Estadio Olímpico Atahualpa in Quito on Tuesday 10 October 2017, closed South American qualifying for the 2018 World Cup. Romario Ibarra put Ecuador ahead inside the opening minute. Lionel Messi answered on 12, 20 and 62 minutes, and Argentina climbed from sixth place to third and qualified for Russia. Trinidad and Tobago beat the United States the same night, a second elimination to go with Chile’s.

What Argentina needed that night, how the four goals came, and what the other results did to the rest of the continent all belong to the same evening.

Thirty-Eight Seconds, and Argentina Were Upside Down

What Argentina Needed in Quito

Argentina started the evening sixth of ten, with only a top-four finish taking them straight to Russia. A win would secure fifth place at worst, and with it the play-off against New Zealand. A defeat would practically bury them, and even a draw would have left them waiting on the four simultaneous matches.

The venue did not help. The ground sits 2,850 metres above sea level, and Argentina had not won a qualifier there in sixteen years. Their last win in Quito had come on 15 August 2001, 2-0 against Ecuador. The campaign itself had opened against the same opponent, Ecuador winning 2-0 in Buenos Aires on 8 October 2015, 733 days earlier.

Romario Ibarra, and Ecuador’s Two Ibarras

Ecuador had nothing left to play for. They had been eliminated in advance and would finish eighth, with Jorge Célico in interim charge. It made no difference to the way they began. The clock read thirty-eight seconds when Romario Ibarra and Roberto Ordóñez broke forward together, worked a pair of headers between them, and the mobile number eight finished across Sergio Romero. Ibarra was making only his second appearance for his country.

Ecuador had started two Ibarras that night, Renato in midfield and Romario further forward, and the goal was Romario’s.

The Messi Hat-Trick: 12, 20 and 62 Minutes

Ecuador led for eleven minutes. Messi then scored three times in fifty of them.

• 1′ Romario Ibarra, after a headed exchange with Roberto Ordóñez, Ecuador 1-0 Argentina.
• 12′ Lionel Messi, a one-two with Ángel Di María, Ecuador 1-1 Argentina.
• 20′ Lionel Messi, into the roof of the net, Ecuador 1-2 Argentina.
• HT Ecuador 1-2 Argentina.
• 62′ Lionel Messi, a chip over Máximo Banguera, Ecuador 1-3 Argentina.
• FT Ecuador 1-3 Argentina.

Eleven minutes separated the shock from the equaliser. Messi played a one-two with Ángel Di María and levelled after 12 minutes, then finished from inside the area eight minutes later. Di María made the first goal and Enzo Pérez the third; the second was unassisted, Ecuador’s Darío Aimar losing the ball on the edge of his own area.

Argentina had gone 450 minutes without scoring in open play. The previous such goal had come in a 3-0 win over Colombia in San Juan on 15 November 2016. The arithmetic is exact: five matches, 450 minutes, and the only Argentine goals in between were a Messi penalty against Chile and a Venezuelan own goal. The hat-trick was Messi’s first in World Cup qualifying, and his twenty-first goal in the competition made him the leading scorer in the history of the South American section.

One Evening, Five Matches, and a Continent Sorted Out

The Five Results That Settled South America

South American qualifying ends with all five matches kicking off together. Brazil had qualified long before; everything else was live.

Luis Suárez scored twice in Uruguay’s 4-2 win over Bolivia, and Colombia went through on the draw in Peru. Five days earlier Chile had beaten Ecuador 2-1 in Santiago and looked safe; by ten o’clock they were gone, sixth on goal difference behind Peru, both on 26 points. Peru then drew 0-0 in Wellington and won 2-0 in Lima against New Zealand to fill the last South American place.

And in Couva, the United States Went Out

The same date carried a second elimination, in CONCACAF. In Couva, Trinidad and Tobago beat the United States 2-1, on a night when Honduras beat Mexico 3-2 and Panama beat Costa Rica 2-1. That defeat, with wins for Panama and Honduras, left the United States fifth and outside the top four, their first absence from a World Cup since 1986. The goals were an Omar González own goal on 17 minutes, Alvin Jones on 37 and Christian Pulisic on 47.

Was Messi the Decisive Figure?

Messi scored all three Argentina goals in Quito, and the wider numbers settle the question better than the adjectives do. Argentina scored 19 goals in 18 qualifiers, and Messi finished on seven of them, three of which arrived in this one match. He was man of the match, rated 10. Afterwards Sampaoli said, “Luckily the nationality of the best player in the world is Argentinian”.

The stronger claim, that without Messi Argentina were out, does not quite hold. A draw would have left them depending on other results rather than automatically eliminated. What the hat-trick removed was the dependency, and Argentina finished third without needing to look at anyone else’s score. Argentine sides carried by one player are familiar ground, and the man who set the template has his own place in our Football Mavericks series.

READ MORE: More sides that fell apart when the table was against them, in our Football Disasters series →

Ecuador 1-3 Argentina (2017)

Thirty-eight seconds of chaos at 2,850 metres, eleven minutes of recovery, then a hat-trick that carried a country to Russia on the same date Chile and the United States went out. Argentina had not won in Quito since 2001, and 450 minutes had passed since their last open-play goal. By full time they were third. For more evenings when one result rearranged everything, keep exploring our On This Day series.

Sources: ESPN, BBC Sport, Sky Sports, Goal, El Universo, Transfermarkt, RSSSF, Football365.