Paraguay Football Fans

Paris St Germain manager Laurent Blanc feels that there is no reason why striker Edinson Cavani cannot coexist with Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Both these players have huge egos but it is the former who has lost out a place as the striker.

Ibrahimovic continues to be the main forward at the French club despite his age, which is approaching 35. Cavani, meanwhile, is at the best period of his career, but manager Laurent Blanc has persisted with utilising the forward in a wide position. Cavani has been subjected to several transfer rumours as a result of this unhappiness, but a move is yet to materialise.

However, there are finally signs that who are starting to get along well with each other. Ibrahimovic and Cavani formed a great partnership in the recent win over Saint Etienne. They have taken their tally for the campaign to seven with goals in this game. Summer signing Angel di Maria may not have scored in this match, but he was at the centre of everything good created by the French outfit. PSG are now odds on favourite to win the league title by a comfortable margin after they opened a four-point advantage even at this early stage. The big challenge for PSG will come in the European competitions.

“Everybody has now seen that our attackers are complementary when they have the desire to play together.They have different characteristics and qualities, but what matters most is their presence on the pitch, regardless of their statistics. They did very well.Di Maria put in a great performance in the second half as well.We have some great players and he is one of them. We have to be patient with him,” said Blanc. PSG will have to quickly forget this impressive performance and focus on beating Real Madrid in the Champions League.

Paraguay manager Ramon Diaz claims that he will not be talking with his opposition manager Dunga even though he has a great friendship with the Brazil national team coach.

The duo played together during their time in Italian football. Hence, this friendship goes back several years, but it will be put aside when Paraguay and Brazil come against each other in the Copa America quarter-finals. Paraguay are surprise entrants at this stage of the competition, but they are not expected to last much longer. Brazil are overwhelming favourites to win their first Copa America since 2007.

A confidence inspiring aspect for Paraguayan team will be their draws against Argentina and Uruguay – two teams that were considered as one of the favourites to win the title itself. After having managed to a 1-1 draw against Argentina in the opening game, Paraguay went on to secure a 2-2 draw against Uruguay. Their only victory so far the tournament was a narrow 1-0 over minnows Jamaica. They reached the knockout stages at the expense of Uruguay. After Argentina seal a win over the Uruguayans on penalties, Diaz will be taking his team out onto the pitch knowing that his team can set up a semi-final game against Argentina.

“It’s not a friendship from now but from a long time ago.We have been out to eat together a lot of times and we have a great relationship.Dunga is a great coach and I congratulate him because he has changed Brazil a lot. They will be a tough and difficult rival but friendship doesn’t count here.To be representing an entire country and what that means, the future of these players. We are going to give everything we can to try to make it through. We want to advance, and this is a final for us,” said Diaz.

2014 was not the year of Paraguay in relation to football as the South American country failed to qualify and compete in the 2014 World Cup, this was something that had not happened to them since 1994 as Paraguay was able to qualify in 4 successive occasions starting from the 1998 World Cup up until the 2010 which was their last one.

During the 2010 edition of the World Cup, the Paraguayan national football team even managed on making it into the quarter-finals which was the best placement in the history of the national side.

The Paraguayan side appeared to be going through a very clear progression system as the team reached the finals of the Copa America in 2011 before being eliminated by Uruguay which was the national side that emerged as the victors from the tournament.

From there on out, things began to slowly crumble for the Paraguayan nation as Gerardo Martino decided to step down from his managerial position in the team and Paraguay finished in the last spot of the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification in the CONMEBOL.

A total of 16 matches were played and Paraguay only managed on claiming 3 victories and lost 10 matches while drawing 3 games. After all of the games were played, Paraguay and Bolivia finished at the bottom spot with each team only being able to collect 12 points.

Chile, Uruguay, Ecuador, Colombia and Argentina were the nations that managed to secure their qualifying ticket into the group stages of the 2014 World Cup meanwhile Paraguay missed their chance to qualify for the international competition for the first time in over 10 years.

Former River Plate manager Ramon Diaz has been given the opportunity to manage Paraguay and get in the team back to the lofty heights achieved during the 2010 World Cup.

Much was expected from this tiny South American nation after they reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup.

Buoyed by the presence of a top-class strikers like Roque Santa Cruz, they were expected to make an impact at the 2014 edition in their own continent. This was not supposed to be the case after they even failed to reach the finals following a poor qualification campaign.

Paraguay took the decision to sack their former manager Gerardo Pelusso in 2013 after having witnessed the team crumble during the qualification. Victor Genes was placed as a caretaker manager for the last few months. This was also seen as an opportunity for Paraguay to look at Victor Genes as a potential candidate on a permanent basis. This did not turn out well after Paraguay failed to impress even in friendly matches. The team managed just one victory in the last five friendly matches. The national team’s controlling authority has taken a decision to appoint Diaz, who has immense experience of working in South America and winning titles.

He famously led River Plate back to the top of the Argentine table only last season.“Ramón Díaz and the Paraguayan Football Association (APF) have sealed a four-year work agreement,” said the association president Alejandro Dominguez in a press conference. “It’s one of the biggest challenges of my career. There’s a lot of work to do,” said Diaz. The 55-year-old has worked with top players at the likes of Inter Milan, Monaco, and River Plate in his playing days. He has largely been in charge of Argentine clubs in his coaching career with the most successful being at River Plate.

Kaka doesn’t know how long he continues playing in Brazil.
The 32-year old, whose parent club is Orlando City, is currently at Sao Paulo on loan till January.

There have been rumours that his loan period would be extended, but, the player himself did not drop any strong hints that he was going to stay in his motherland.

In an interview yesterday, when Kaka was asked about the chances of loan extension, he said, “I don’t have any idea. To be honest, it’s not me who is going to make the call in that regard. It’s up to the two clubs to have a chat and reach a conclusion. It’s also important to see where Sao Paulo finishes the season.”

It’s believed if Sao Paulo makes it to Copa Libertadores, they would definitely try and push for the extension of Kaka’s loan.

At this point of time, Sao Paulo is at the second position in the Brazilian top tier. With 18 wins and 9 draws, they have secured 67 points.

Just four weeks are remaining for the season to end there in Brazil and if Sao Paulo doesn’t play really bad football in that period, they should definitely be in top 4 at the end of the season and if they are, they would be in next season’s Copa Libertadores.

However, the Copa Sudamericana title would get Sao Paulo to Copa Libertadores anyway. They have already reached the Round of 8 in Sudamericana.

So, it’s very much possible that the Tricolor would be playing in the 2015 Libertadores and that means Kaka’s chances of staying in Brazil are quite high too.

So far during his 6-month long spell at Morumbi, Kaka has shaken the net two times in the 20 matches that he has featured in.

Paraguay is getting ready for the approaching 2015 Copa America and the squad which is currently being managed by Victor Genes played against China and Korea Republic in October but both matches finished in a defeat as the Asian squads proved to be just way too much for Paraguay but the head coach Victor Genes had already said that these recently played friendly matches were going to be nothing more than warm up games for his squad.
‘’These matches will help form an appropriate squad that is good enough to play in the 2015 Copa America and hopefully we can earn our spot into the 2018 World Cup. After 4 consecutive World Cup qualifications, we failed on getting into the 2014 World Cup but life goes on and we must have to create a new squad’’ Paraguay’s Victor Genes said.
Paraguay made a trip to the Cheonan Baekseok Stadium as they played a friendly match with Korea Republic on October 10 with the Asian team coming out with a 2-0 victory.
The Paraguayan goal-keeper Antony Silva had to make an early save in order to deny Tae-Hee Nam from scoring as Korea Republic started the match as the better team in the early stages of the game.
The early dominance that the hosts had implanted into the pitch was evident a few minutes later when Paraguay allowed their opponents with just too much space on the pitch and Lee Chung-Yong capitalized on this as he rushed down the right wing and delivered a cross over to Kim Min-Woo as he scored the opening goal of the match at the 27th minute.
Only 5 minutes later and Tae-Hee Nam extended the lead of his squad by 2 goals as he scored with a close range shot that went into the back of the net.
Paraguay tried to get back into the game in the 2nd half as the team of Victor Genes improved significantly but ultimately failed on scoring a single goal.
China were the next opponents of Paraguay as they battled against each other in another friendly match which also saw the Paraguayan side sustaining another defeat but even with these successive losses, Victor Genes remains optimistic about what his squad can offer and do in the upcoming 2015 Copa America.

C.Ronaldo’s series of impressive performances helped Portugal on clinching their spot in the 2014 World Cup with the star of Real Madrid scoring a hat-trick during a qualification match against Sweden as well making another standout display in a friendly match against Cameroon.

From there on out it was a downhill path for the former Manchester United player as he could not continue pushing Portugal to the next stages of the 2014 World Cup and had to settle with a 3rd spot in Group G which wasn’t enough for them to advance any further.

According to the Portuguese winger Ricardo Quaresma, one of the main problems that Portugal had was that the team relied on C.Ronaldo too much.

“We cannot just put pressure on Cristiano and he does not play alone. I think we Portuguese put too much pressure on just one player. The team is not just Cristiano. No player in the world can solve a game if you do not have colleagues behind him. I think that we Portuguese have failed [at the World Cup] because we put too much pressure on one player only. I think also we failed because all the other players who were next to Cristiano maybe didn’t feel comfortable about everyone talking about just one player and not the rest of the squad.”

Ricardo Quaresma is a former player of Inter Milan who has represented and played for Portugal at the international stage as he has been featured in qualifying matches and he was included in the provisional list of the head coach Paulo Bento but when the tactician decided to cut his list to only 23 player, Quaresma was excluded from the squad.

Paraguay might not have been able to qualify for the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2014, but, they are a very talented unit and they proved that yesterday night in a practice match against one of the World’s strongest teams France in Nice.

Victor Genes’ boys were trailing by 0-1 for most parts of the match, but, at no point of time did they look like giving up. They kept looking for that leveller right through the game and finally managed to score it in the 89th minute to stop the Les Blues on a draw.

This was the second practice game for France ahead of the World Cup. In their first one a few days ago, they had secured a heavy win against Norway. They would have hoped to do the same against Paraguay too, but, it wasn’t to be. The men in White and Red pushed the hosts to the limit.

France would not have been too disappointed with this kind of game though. You like yourself to be tested a little bit before a big tournament and Paraguay did the same to the Les Blues yesterday.

Two of the main French players, Karim Benzema and Franck Ribery had their names in the match squad, but, neither was sent onto the Ground by the manager Didier Deschamps.
At the end of the match, when the reporters asked Deschamps about Ribery’s fitness, he said, “As I said earlier, we are looking to get him fit for our next practice game. Our medical Staff is working very hard on him and hopefully, they would get him back on park come next Sunday.”

The Les Blues will play their third and final practice match before the World Cup against Jamaica next weekend. That match is going to take place at Lille.

Gerardo Martino’s time in charge of Barcelona saw him being unable on securing any major trophies with the Spanish club and even though he had originally signed a 2 year long contract with Barcelona, the Argentinean coach was removed from his position in the club in 10 months.

Barcelona was eliminated from the Champions League after playing against Athletic Madrid and losing 2-1 and they failed on winning the League title and had to settle with a 2nd place position.

Real Madrid defeated Barcelona in the Copa del Rey and all of these factors are some of the main reasons on why Martino’s time in charge of Barcelona was cut so short.

Even with all of those recent disappointing results and matches involving Gerardo Martino and Barcelona, the Argentine coach will have a meeting with the president of Paraguay Horacio Cartes as he is going to be offered with a chance to coach the national Paraguay football team.

A few weeks ago it was confirmed that Marcelo Bielsa turned down the chance to coach the Paraguayan national football team as he had already set his mind on coaching Olympique de Marseille.

Paraguay Football Association (APF) vice-president Alejandro Dominguez revealed to reporters that Bielsa did not agree to coach the nation.

“Yesterday morning Bielsa called me to communicate that he was dismissing the possibility of leading the Paraguayan national team,” Dominguez told Radio Monumental.

The position has now been offered to Gerardo Martino with a series of meetings and discussions expected to take place in the next few weeks. Martino coached and led the Paraguayan coach through the 2010 World Cup where they managed on reaching the quarterfinals until they suffered a loss against Spain.

Paraguay striker Roque Santa Cruz has stated that his club team, Malaga, were unfortunate not to come away with a point from the recent match against Real Sociedad. After going through a lot of financial troubles in recent years, Malaga are slowly rebuilding and looking to get out of the relegation dogfight.

They are currently just one place above the relegation zone with only three points separating them from it. A point would have been extremely good in these circumstances, but they were able to get only a 1-0 defeat against their Champions league places chasing opponents.

Real Sociedad are only four points below the final Champions league qualifying places. Even though this was a home match, Malaga were unable to take point. Santa Cruz, though, feels that his team deserved a point for the effort that they put into the match. Former Arsenal striker Carlos Vela scored the only goal of the match in the 10th minute after an assist from José Ángel. Even though Real Sociedad were able to play this victory, it was Malaga who created the much opportunities in the match. They had eight shots on target compared to only two from the away team.

Santa Cruz says that Malaga would have won the match on any other day given the dominance they had in the encounter.
“It never sits well with us when we lose a game, particularly when we could have taken advantage of a slow start and the goal opportunities we had in the first half.

However I think we were unlucky, and the rival keeper was extremely fortunate to save a number of promising shots at goal. We lacked a bit of confidence when it came to goal chances, but I think on the whole we performed well. I hope we learn from this game and start every match now with more intensity,” said Santa Cruz.