World Cup: How Paraguay’s Draw Moves From Struggle to Glory and 16-Year Wait Comes To An End

The Paraguayan national team faced Ecuador at the Estadio ueno Defensores del Chaco yesterday, for round 17 of the South American qualifiers for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. It was a 0-0 draw. However, the excitement was for the Albirroja qualification for the World Cup after 16 years.

Draw With a Happy Ending

To better understand the bad game, Ecuador had only one win in the last four qualifying games, not counting this match against Paraguay. Already, if we take into account this last game, it was their fourth result of 0-0 in the last 5 matches. Even so, the Ecuadorian team has already qualified for the World Cup, which probably slowed down the pace of the visitors even more.

On the other hand, the hosts, who came from a defeat to Brazil in the last round, entered the field dreaming of qualifying for the World Cup. This dream weighed on the minds of the players who failed to play a good game, and, afraid of making mistakes and harming themselves, left the game with a sleepy pace.

In fact, the drama itself was explicit on the faces of the fans in the stadium who could only watch the time pass and hope that Lionel Messi’s Argentina would do their part against Venezuela. And that’s exactly what happened, with the 3-0 victory of the current World Cup champions. Just the draw was enough to qualify and bring relief to an entire country.

Saved By the Champions

Who would have thought that the reason for a national commotion would come through results obtained by another nation? The greatest irony is still the strong rivalry between Argentines and Paraguayans, not only in the sports scene, but also in the political scenario. With two goals from Messi and one from Lautaro Martinez, Argentina did what Paraguay could not do and secured the World Cup qualification on a platter that took the whole country to celebrate like crazy.

This relief led the authorities of Paraguay to decree a national holiday after the historic qualification for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Their last participation was in the World Cup in South Africa in 2010; on that occasion, they reached the quarterfinals, being eliminated by the team that would be the champion that year, Spain.

FIFA World Cup 2026

Now, in addition to Paraguay, we can already count on Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay, and Colombia, who are directly qualified for the group stage of the 2026 World Cup. Only one representative of the continent is missing for the repechage phase, which will be decided between Venezuela and Bolivia: Venezuela, with 18 points, faces Colombia, and Bolivia, with 17 points, faces Brazil. Who will survive and guarantee another chance to live the American dream?

The FIFA World Cup 2026 will be hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico. As host nations, their national teams are already qualified. This will be the 23rd edition of the tournament and the first to feature 48 teams. The competition is set to kick off on June 11, 2026, with the final taking place on July 19, 2026.

National Commotion

Whether Paraguay will go far in this edition of the World Cup is still uncertain, but we can say that Paraguayan pride is back and that their team has certainly given fans reason to believe.

This will mark Paraguay’s ninth appearance at the FIFA World Cup. The team’s best performance came in 2010, when they reached the quarterfinals. It’s also worth noting that, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the first World Cup, Paraguay will host one of the opening matches of the 2030 FIFA World Cup, alongside Argentina and Uruguay. However, the main host nations for 2030 will be Spain, Portugal, and Morocco.