Enner Valencia can break the record he shares with Eusebio, Paolo Rossi and Oleg Salenko

The Ecuadorian striker Enner Valencia He has scored six consecutive goals between the 2014 and 2022 World Cups, something that only the Portuguese Eusebio (in 1966), the Italian Paolo Rossi (in 1982) and the Russian Oleg Salenko (in 1994) had achieved in history.

Yes Valencia (33 years old) manages to score the first goal of the ‘Tri’ on Tuesday against Senegal would become the first footballer in history to score seven consecutive goals.

These are the players who have scored six consecutive goals in history:

– Eusebius (1966)

The ‘Black Pearl’ was the first to achieve this, in the edition held in England.

After failing to score in the first game against Hungary (3-1), he scored the second of the three against Bulgaria (3-0), but the Portuguese striker came out on top in the third game, when Portugal beat Brazil 3-1, with the second and third marked by eusebio.

In the quarterfinals, Portugal faced Korea del Norte, which was leading 3-0 after 25 minutes, but Eusebio led the comeback with four goals, two of them from penalties, in half an hour (from minute 27 to minute 59).

José Augusto’s goal that made the final 5-3 broke the goalscoring streak of eusebiowho would still score two more goals in the tournament, in the semifinal defeat against England (2-1) and one of the two that gave the Seleçao third place (2-1 against the Soviet Union).

– Paolo Rossi (1982)

Reappeared in time to play the World Cup in Spain, after serving a harsh sanction for the match-fixing scandal that became known in Italy as ‘Totonero’, neither the beginnings of the Azzurra nor of rossi in the tournament they foreshadowed what would come next.

Italy qualified second in their group with three draws and Rossi failed to score against Poland, Peru or Cameroon. That condemned the Italians to play a second phase, in a group of three, together with two of the great favourites, Zico’s Brazil and Argentina’s Maradona.

Italy defeated Argentina 2-1, but rossi he did not score either, leaving his big day for the next game, with a hat trick against Brazil to win 3-2.

Then he scored both goals against Poland in the semifinals (2-0) and opened the score in the final, in which Italy beat Germany 3-1.

Rossi was decisive in the triumph of his team, with goals in the quarterfinals (against Brazil), the semifinals and the final.

– Oleg Salenko (1994)

The glory of the Russian forward was much more ephemeral, because five of his six goals were achieved in a single game, in the 6-1 win against Cameroon, a victory that did not prevent the elimination of Russia, which had lost on the first day against Brazil (2-0) and against Sweden (3-1), with Salenko’s first goal in the tournament.

At least Salenko has the consolation of being the footballer in history who has scored the most goals in a World Cup match (5).

-Enner Valencia (2014 and 2018)

If the previous three achieved the mark in a single edition of the World Cup, Valencia It has done so in two, with the added difficulty that Ecuador did not qualify for the last edition in Russia (2018).

Valencia scored the only goal for the ‘Tri’ in the defeat against Switzerland in the first game (2-1) and both in the victory against Honduras (2-1), but did not score in the 0-0 against France that sent Ecuadorians home.

In Qatar, the current Fenerbahce player, at 33, was the author of a double in the victory in the opening match against the host team (2-0) and the player who equalized the result against the Netherlands (1-1 ) and that leaves the ‘Tri’ to a draw against Senegal to qualify for the round of 16 and equal the best performance of the South American team in its four World Cup appearances (in Germany-2006).