Eight days before, Paraguay had outplayed Brazil only for a late goal from Fred to rescue the Selecao a point. However, only one side could get out of this quarter final with anything, and that team was Paraguay.
Why exactly Laurent Robert failed to turn his talent into greatness could be blamed on himself, […]
The last match of what has generally been a rather poor group stage rounds off what had actually been a great evening of football, hopefully boding well for the rest of the Copa America.
With usual whipping boys Venezuela already through, the game looked fairly well set up for Paraguay to get an easy win to guarantee their progress to the quarter-finals - one needed with a wounded Brazil desperate for a win later against Ecuador. A goal from Salomon Rondon four minutes in suggested we probably shouldn't make assumptions.
One of the positives we could take from the lack of action at the start of the 43rd Copa America was that there would be less dead rubbers in the last round of group games. Not here though, with Claudio Borghi and Sergio Markarian making 15 changes to their sides knowing they had already progressed to the quarter finals.
For the third night in a row, we have the glamour tie of one of the Copa America's groups. This time we head to Group B for Mano Menezes' Brazil against Gerardo Martino's Paraguay.
Admittedly the least interesting match up of the evening. After Uruguay had drawn with Chile, people could be forgiven for ignoring the clash between Peru and a heavily depleted Mexican side, and in doing so they didn't miss a whole lot.
The match wasn't exactly the glamour clash of the group, and the first half showed why, but a livelier second half left some interest going into the last games of the group.
Round two of the 43rd Copa America kicked off with the glamour tie of Group A: hosts Argentina facing Colombia, which soon settled into what was broadly a repeat of the two's dull performances from a few days before.



