GUAYAQUIL, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Ecuador will be playing to win the Copa America when the world's oldest continental football tournament begins in June, according to the team's new manager Jordi Cruyff.
The Tricolor will start their campaign against co-hosts Colombia on June 13 and will also face Brazil, Peru, Qatar and Venezuela in the group stage.
"I'm ambitious. I want to win everything I can," Cruyff said in his first press conference since his appointment as Ecuador boss earlier this month.
"Of course enjoying it is important but we want to compete and win. That's why we're in football. The only preparatory games in the national team are the friendlies. When we play official matches we have to give our all. That's my character. I understand there's a pathway and a process but there is an ambition to compete from the start until the very end," the son of Dutch legend Johan Cruyff added.
The 45-year-old will be acutely aware that the team's disappointing performances at last year's Copa America in Brazil, when they failed to win a group match, led to the sacking of Colombian manager Hernan Dario Gomez.
The team was led on an interim basis in the second half of 2019 by Argentinian Jorge Celico.
Cruyff's first task in his new role will be to prepare the Tricolor for the South American zone's 2022 World Cup qualifying tournament, which begins in March. Ecuador's first match will be a visit to Argentina on March 26.
"We're only going to have a few days together before Argentina so the idea will be to adapt as quickly as possible by using simple messages that are easy to understand and by working very specifically," Cruyff said.
"It will be a difficult challenge but at the same time exciting, because I see the necessary material to achieve good results."
Cruyff, a former attacking midfielder who was capped nine times for the Netherlands, turned to management in 2009 and spent the past two years in charge of Chinese Super League club Chongqing Dangdai Lifan.
