Paraguay, who sit bottom of the World Cup qualifying table in South America, managed a comfortable 4-0 victory over Bolivia to give hopes that the team will be able to improve in the forthcoming years.
Paraguay have no chance of qualifying for the World Cup after having taken just 11 points from the 14 matches so far. Only five teams can qualify for the World Cup out of the nine from the South American continent. Even though they managed to reach the quarter-finals of the 2010 World Cup, they have been very disappointing in the last few years.
This led to the Paraguay Football Association changing managers twice, but they have been improving constantly under the new management of Victor Genes. He has been trying to utilise a squad that has both experience and youth. The likes of Roque Santa Cruz, who are now one of the most experienced in the squad, managed to score in both of the recent matches. The 4-0 win over Bolivia was followed by a 5-2 defeat against Argentina. Ahead of the match with Argentina, Santa Cruz said that Paraguay were not going to be afraid of attacking the top team in South American qualification right now.
Argentina currently leading the table with 29 points compared to the 26 points of Colombia in the second place. “Argentina as always goes on to win and we as local will do the same. It will not be a party to wait and see what will they do. Depart to seek, will be a grudge match,” said the former Manchester city and Bayern Munich striker. As a result of the two goals against Argentina, Paraguay have scored seven goals in the last two matches, which is a major improvement following the arrival of the new manager only recently.