Pragmatic Paraguaypublished at 01:51 BST
United States v Paraguay (02:00 BST)
Tom McCoy
BBC Sport journalist
Paraguay missed out on the
World Cup in 2014, 2018 and 2022 and their hopes of reaching this tournament
looked bleak after they scored just once in their opening six qualifiers. But
Gustavo Alfaro’s appointment as head coach in 2024 galvanised them and they lost just
one of their remaining 12 matches.
Their style is unashamedly
pragmatic – defend deep and counter-attack. They averaged 37% possession in
qualifying, the lowest figure in South America, and hit a higher proportion of
passes long than any of their continental rivals.
Paraguay also recorded the
highest ‘direct speed’ – a measure of how quickly the ball moves towards the
opposition goal-line – of any Conmebol side, while their average number of
passes per possession sequence was the lowest.
It was not necessarily
long-ball football, but the emphasis was certainly on playing vertically rather
than slow, intricate build-up.
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