Roque Santa Cruz has finally been reunited with his former boss, Mark Hughes at Manchester City. Hughes had made multiple offers for Santa Cruz back in January, but these attempts failed due to the refusal of Blackburn managers. At the time, Roque was considered vital to keep Blackburn in the premiership. Ironically, Roque barely played the remainder of the season due to injuries.

The £18 million that were paid for him, make the most valuable Paraguayan athlete ever.

How will he fare at Manchester City? They have plenty of resources at Manchester City and they are showing it. They have also signed Carlos Tevez and Gareth Barry, but there also seem to be offers floating around for Emmanuel Adebayor, Samuel Eto’o, Carol Puyol, David Trezeguet, and probably more.

There might end up being an overpopulation of big named strikers at his new club. If Roque gets fit, do you think he will get much playing time?

Paulo Da Silva

Former Toluca (MEX) center back Paulo da Silva will play for Sunderland next season. The 29 year old is a key defender of the Albirroja as well as a long time captain of his former club Toluca. It is his leadership and positioning which have contributed greatly to his long time success wherever he has played.

Career Highlights
2003-2009 Toluca.

One season at:
Cerro Porteno (PAR), Libertad (PAR), Perugia (ITA), and Lanus (ARG)

We wish these boys all the best in the upcoming season!

Un abrazo,

This past week, we had two away games before Uruguay and Ecuador.

We only brought back one point, but since no one won all six points that were in play, we are still comfortably leading by four points.

After our defeat in Uruguay and considering how well Ecuador played against Brazil, our prospects of bringing points back from Ecuador didn’t look so good.

Paraguay had absolutely no obligation of bringing points back from either game. Paraguay has the obligation of winning all its home games. The points we bite on the road are extra credit. We have already won plenty of extra credit points against Peru, Chile, Colombia, and Argentina. Our remaining home games include Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, and Colombia. I can’t promise any Bolivian-like tennis scores, but we should be able to keep most of these points at home. We are also likely to continue to bring points from our away games (Brazil and Venezuela remain).

Losing these two games would not have been the end of the world!

Uruguay
Without a doubt, this has been our worst game. The Albirroja was truly unrecognizable against a Uruguayan team which defended flawlessly and severely punished our errors.

Marcelo Estigarribia. This player had an excellent performance in the friendly game against France, but this time he was very disappointing. He will have to do a lot of convincing before coming back on.

Miguel Samudio. This is an interesting player, who came on in the second half. It was his first international appearance and he looked solid and productive. He can play again any time Morel is out.

Paulo da Silva. He had a bad day and both goals came through him. Paulo I forgive you. You have a lot of credit but please don’t waste anymore!

This was the first time we were down in these World Cup Qualifiers and it was a good test of our reaction. Unfortunately, we did not have one. We have been down against England, Germany, and Sweden in World Cup games and if we ever want to get further we have to able to turn games around when we are down! We did not look promising in Uruguay.

Ecuador
What I didn’t like against Uruguay is precisely what I liked against Ecuador. We finally saw an Albirroja that honestly tried to tie a game at a difficult venue. The second half substitutions, Osvaldo Martinez, the “Pajaro” Benitez, and Carlos Bonet gave Paraguay enough strength to push Ecuador back. The “Pajaro” warned Ecuador twice before scoring.

With a lot of balls and a little luck, Salvador Cabanas paved the way to an equalizer, two and a half minutes into stoppage time. Watch Salvador’s effort in the beginning of the video below.

Cabanas has once again proven to be our most important, game-changing man.

Fuerza Albirroja!

Un abrazo,

Cheers,

Although that Coach Ruiz is saying to everyone that wants to hear him that this time Paraguay will be more offensive, he only made forced changes and mantained the basic structure of the last game.

About the variants that Paraguay could use during the game, he mentioned that the two players that will be on call to the game will be Nelson Cuevas and Julio Dos Santos, if the team needs more fire-power, so knowing the coach this means in my opinion that he will wait until Sweden scores a goal or until the final 10 minutes to make some substitutions.

In his own words, Anibal Ruiz said that he believes that the team had a good performance in the second half of the match against England and the own goal was only a bad luck thing (is he kidding us!!!), so considering this, he will put the same team but with a different tactic position. This time Carlos Humberto Parades will play as a liaison between the midfield and the forwards, and Roque Santa Cruz will play more forward than the last time. So the coach is proposing a 4-3-1-2 figure.

I don’t know for you guys, but this tactic with the same players, doesn’t make any difference to me.

The starting line-up:

Aldo Bobadilla

Denis Caniza – Carlos Gamarra – Julio Cesar Caceres – Jorge Nunez

Carlos Bonet – Roberto Acuna – Christian Riveros

Carlos Humbeto Paredes

Nelson Haedo – Roque Santa Cruz

Let’s hope that this particular situation gives to the players a greater motivation than in the last game. As we all know, the football players are very superstitious, so maybe this could it be deem as a “good sign”.

In my opinion, I love to see my team with their traditional colors, because is not the same facing a team that historically use a kind of t-shirts with a very different model or color. The “Azzurra” is not the same with white colors or Argentina in blue colors, no?

The main referee will be Lubos Michel. and his asisstants Roman Slysko and Martin Balko.

Lets hope that the referee has a good presentation.

Although that I still believe in our team, that we could play much more better than the last game and that Paraguay still have the chances in their hands, it is impossible to don’t think about the different possibilities to make it to the next round.

So, with a calculator in my hand I found to my amazement that today, even without winning any match, Paraguay still can qualify to the next round. Yes my friends, what you are reading is right. In the hypothetical situation that Paraguay ties both games against Sweden and Trinidad & Tobago, if England win their both games with an score of 2 goals, Paraguay will made it to the next round because of the goal difference.

You may think that we entered in the twilight zone, but this is the beautiful of the mathematics. So, one more time, I think is too early in the tournament to lose the faith in the team, we still have many chances, and I hope that the team realize that it is in their hands the tickets for the next round and that today they still depend only in themselves.

Roque Santa Cruz mentioned that now he really feels 100 % recover and yesterday it looked like he at least is getting better. He stood more forward than his last position in the last match, running more, receiving more physical contact and kicking the ball with his right leg, the one that was injured.

The other change was the inclusion of Jorge Nuñez instead of the injured Delio Toledo, winning in this aspect a fastest transition in the left side of the field. The other difference will be the position of Carlos Humberto Paredes who practiced as the link between the midfield and the forwards.

Yesterday practice was all about offensive plays, the free-kick practices and strategies that the team practiced before the game against England were leave behind, mainly because the team will try to forget the awful defensive tactic that they used.