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Quito must be partying all night long when Ecuador zooms into the Top 16 of the Fifa World Cup 2006 with a superb 3-goal match last night.

Ecuador caught my eyes as the country was featured in the prologue of the book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, that I read on the plane last week. It's still fresh on my mind why the nation is driven into soccer. It's like why the Indians in the Southern sub-Continent were driven into Bollywood cinemas in the 70s.

Quito, Ecuador's capital that streches across a volcanic valley high in the Andes, was founded long before Columbus arrived in the Americas. The people there are accustomed to seeing snow on the surrounding peaks, despite the fact that they just live a few miles south of the equator.

That's how author John Perkins describes the city.

On May 24, 1981, barely months after Ronald Reagan (Rep) defeated Jimmy Carter (Dem) in the US presidential election, Ecuador president Jaime Roldos was killed in a fiery airplane crash. It smelled of CIA assassination.

History has it that, early in 1981, the Raldos administration formally tabled a new, radical hydrocarbons law to reform the country's relationship to oil companies. The oil companies retaliated. PR troups started to vilify Roldos, lobbyists swept into Quito and Washington, briefcases full of threats and payoffs, Perkins writes.

Roldos did not cave in to intimidation. He responded by denouncing the conspiracy between politics and oil -- and religion. In the end, he had to be eliminated. And today, Ecuador is the 10th biggest oil supplier to the US.

I would like to quote this part on Page xxiv written by Perkins, who quotes Sandy Tolan in Ecuador: Lost Promises, (National Public Radio, Morning Edition, July 9, 2003):

Ecuador is typical of countries around the world that EHMs (Economic Hit Men) have brought into the economic-political fold. For every $100 of crude oil taken out of the Ecuadorian rain forests, the oil companies receive $75. Of the remaining $25, three-quarters must go to paying off foreign debts. Most of the remainder covers military and other government expenses -- which leaves about $2.50 for health, education, and programs aimed at helping the poor.

Thus, out of every $100 worth of oil torn from the Amazon, less than $3 goes to the people who need the money most...

Thus soccer thrives in Ecuador as the people, the lowest common denominators, are hungry to change their fate by seeking means Pelé has shown them.