RIO DE JANEIRO, July 3RIO DE JANEIRO, July 3 (Reuters) - Ecuadorean football celebrated another ground-breaking moment on Thursday after LDU became the first team from the country to win the South American Libertadores Cup.
The Quito-based team's win on Wednesday came six years after Ecuador played at their first World Cup and two years after they went one better by reaching the last 16 in Germany, their run ending with a 1-0 defeat to England.
Goalkeeper Jose Cevallos, 37, was the LDU hero, saving three shots as his side won the penalty shootout 3-1 against Brazil's Fluminense at the Maracana after an enthralling 5-5 aggregate draw.
Cevallos, slow to react for two of Fluminense's goals in their 3-1 second leg win and looking shaky throughout the game, distracted his opponents with his knee-wobbling antics and by praying in the back of the net before each kick.
"I was asking my father, who died when I was 11 years old, for protection," Cevallos said.
Cevallos, who played in the 2002 Ecuador team and also kept goal for Barcelona in 1998 on the last occasion a club from the country reached the Libertadores final, had been doubtful beforehand because of a thigh injury.
"There's no way I could have missed this game," he told reporters. "When I joined this club, I knew it would be the last chance in my career."
"This conquest is for the whole country, which has always supported and trusted me.
HUMBLE TEAM
"This is a humble team with a lot of hunger... We've done something historic. I have no more words."
Founded in 1930, LDU, full name Liga Deportiva Universitaria and also known as Liga de Quito, have dominated Ecuadorean football recently and form the backbone of the national side.
Their Casa Blanca stadium, opened in 1997, is one of the most modern in South America.
"This title is not just for Liga, it's for Ecuadorean football as a whole," said their Argentine coach Edgardo Bauza, nicknamed the Big Duck.
"We still haven't realised the full dimension of what we've achieved, all I can say is that I'm very emotional," added Bauza, who took over in 2006 with the club at a low ebb and rebuilt the side amid calls for his dismissal.
"It means a chance to face Manchester United, play against (Carlos) Tevez, (Cristiano) Ronaldo," he added after his team won the right to play at the Club World championship in Japan in December.
Unfortunately, not much of the present side is likely to be left by the time December comes around.
Winning the Libertadores Cup usually means a team will be sold off within weeks as the players are snapped up by foreign clubs, resulting in another rebuilding process.
Forward Joffre Guerron, who tormented defences with his speed and trickery on the flanks, has already been sold to Spanish club Getafe.
(Writing by Brian Homewood in Rio de Janeiro; Editing by Justin Palmer)