Paraguay became today the favourite team from Group F to advance in the second round, beating Slovakia by 2-0 and taking the lead in the standings. Gerardo Martino and his players completely shut off Slovakia in the Free State Stadium of Bloemfontein, and now have four total points before their last group stage game against New Zealand.
Paraguay was the better team on the field for almost the entire game, and had lots of chances right from the start. Roque Santa Cruz fired of a powerful shot just 3 minutes in the match, forcing a tough block from goalkeeper Ján Mucha. Two minutes later Nelson Haedo Valdez barely missed the target, and again Mucha made another fantastic save later on stopping Cristian Riveros. Paraguay kept pushing hard so the goal did not take long to come: Lucas Barrios gave the assist to Enrique Vera that had no problem pushing the ball past Mucha to open the score for Paraguay. Slovakia was invisible throughout the entire first half and Mucha kept the score at 1-0 beating Santa Cruz in an one-on-one 8 minutes before half-time.
Paraguay lost a bit of rhythm in the second half, mostly because the midfielders started to get tired. Slovakia had definitely improved, but was unable to make a single chance for the rest of the game, and Justo Villar was having one of the easiest afternoons of his entire career guarding Paraguay’s net. Vera lost a fantastic opportunity to finish the game in 72′ but his header missed the goal for just a few centimetres. Cristian Riveros scored the second goal for Paraguay four minutes before full time, and later on Slovakia lost their only chance of the second half right before the game ended.
