A primer about Independiente del Valle (a day too late)

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Reposting this, since I dropped it in the middle of the chat and it probably got a bit buried. Surely no one cares much about IDV, now that the match is over, but for those curious about Ecuadorian football, here you go.

Continuing the discussion from 2023 Sevilla FC Preseason Friendly Chats:

As the resident “expert” on Ecuadorian futbol (currently writing this from Quito), I’ll add the only bit of color commentary I really know about Independiente del Valle. And color commentary is probably well-timed right now, since this match is seemingly getting more boring by the minute.

So, while not (yet?) a household name, Moises Caicedo is lined up to likely become the most expensive Ecuadorian transfer in history, as EPL clubs are lining up offers approaching 100m euros for the Brighton player. Moisés Caicedo was bought by Brighton from Independiente del Valle in January 2021 for 5m euros, but both in the World Cup and in the EPL, has shown himself to be an really formidable midfielder, playing a huge part in Brighton’s 6th place (Europa League!) finish in the EPL.

In any case, not terribly relevant to today’s match other than the fact that IDV have seemingly built up Ecuador’s strongest youth talent development system, something which seems to be paying off with strong performances across South America and to some degree in the local league, where they’ve only been in the top tier since 2010 and their first promotion to second tier was only in 2008, and as recently as 1996, IDV were playing in the regional Pichincha cup, effectively Ecuador’s 4th tier of football.

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And one PS to yesterday’s post.

After taking down teams like River, Boca, Gremio, São Paolo, Corinthians and Flamengo in the last 5-10 years, the team has come to be known as the “matagigantes” or giant-killer.

While unable to kill the “giants” of Isaac Romero, Pedrosa, and Kike Salas, people here in Ecuador seem to largely just be happy to have a club from Ecuador making a bigger name for their league abroad, in spite of the loss. Also, people care a lot more about National Team football than local teams, in most cases, so I think there are a lot of closet fans of IDV (like myself, who historically supported C.D. Olmedo and LDU Quito) because of the strength IDV are bringing to the national team, witnessed in Ecuador’s strong showing in the World Cup, in spite of their disappointing loss to Senegal.

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