 |
| |
|
 |
 |
|
|
All or nothing for Paraguay vs. Slovenia
Paraguay, which lost 3-1 to Spain in its last match, must beat Slovenia and hope that South Africa lose to the Spanish on Tuesday to have a chance of advancing to the second round. Spain meets South Africa in the South Korean city of Daejeon Tuesday evening at the same time as the Paraguay-Slovenia clash. Spain lead Group B with six points from two games. South Africa has four points with a goal difference of plus one. Paraguay has one point with a goal difference of minus two. Slovenia has 0 points from two games. That means if South Africa lose by one goal, Paraguay will need a two goal victory to advance. Paraguay coach Cesare Maldini would not indicate what approach his team would adopt for the game, but the players seemed to be clear about what was needed. "We must take advantage of Slovenia's defensive weaknesses," said striker Roque Santa Cruz, who scored in Paraguay's opening game and has been one of the team's few standouts. For flamboyant 'keeper Jose Luis Chilavert the match will quite simply be "a life or death encounter." Yet Chilavert accepted his team was in a difficult position, pointing out that Paraguay's fate lies only partly in the team's hands. "What we are able to do against Slovenia will not decide everything, since it doesn't depend only on us," he said. "We have a chance, but we now depend on Spain, as well as ourselves, for Paraguay to go through," he said, adding "I hope Spain lends us a hand." Paraguay's reliance on Spain has more than a stroke of irony to it. Going into the game, Chilavert threw a series of insults at the Spanish side, which tied 0-0 with Paraguay in the 1998 World Cup, as the Europeans went out in the first round. Chilavert had suggested that Spain would not have advanced if its had to play in the South American qualifiers, however the always controversial 'keeper was playing down his comments Monday, suggesting they were just "to feed the rivalry before the game and not because I think that Spain is a weak team." Meanwhile, left back Carlos Gamarra, who plays at Greece's AEK Athens, said he was confident Paraguay would come through and that the Slovenes "will not frusutrate our chance of repeating and even improving on what we did in the 1998 World Cup." In France 1998, Paraguay reached the second round, finally bowing out after a 113th minute golden goal by eventual champions France. "We have prepared ourselves physically and mentally for this game. We hope to keep put concentration for the whole game and not give away any advantage that we get as in the other games," said defender Francisco Arce. In its opening game against South Africa, the Paraguayans took a two goal lead but ended the game with a 2-2 draw after the Africans pulled off a second half comeback. Then, on June 7, Paraguay went a goal up against Spain, before again losing its lead, as Spain ran out winners by 3-1. "I am sure that this time we will play all 90 minutes with the same power and strength as at the beginning. We will go out looking for the win, but we will try not to wear ourselves out warly on for a change," Arce added. Paraguay are likely to start with Jose Luis Chilavert, Celso Ayala, Carlos Gamarra, Francisco Arce, Denis Caniza, Julio Cesar Caceres, Carlos Paredes, Roberto Acuna, Jorge Campos or Diego Gavilan, Roque Santa Cruz and Jose Cardozo. The game will start at 20.30 local time (11.30 GMT) in the Jeju stadium in Seogwipo. |
|
||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
