To say it was a crazy weekend in the 2011 Copa America would be an understatement. This was certainly the case as Brazil played Paraguay in a quarter-final clash that the holders were expected to win relatively comfortably.
As predicted, Brazil dominated much of the match and Paraguay didn’t get shot on goal. There was just one thing missing for the Brazilians – a goal.
After 120 minutes of trying, they could not gab the decisive strike. In theory, an opening goal could have been the first of many, but it never came and the game was taken to a penalty shoot-out.
This would at least give Brazil the chance to hit the back of the net for the first time on the night, or so you would think. In a dramatic turn of events, they missed all four of their spot-kicks.
This meant that when Paraguay stroked home their second penalty, they had progressed to the semi-finals of Copa America against all the odds.
After dominating the match and then missing four penalties, Brazil had thrown away their hopes to leave their fans and pretty much everyone in world football shell-shocked.
Those in their Paraguay Copa America Kits deserve some credit to though, goalkeeper and captain Justo Villar in particular. He was in inspired form to keep Brazil out and got his rewards in the penalty shoot-out.
Reflecting on a special night, he said afterwards: “It was a match dominated almost entirely by Brazil. We had to take refuge a lot of the time at the back and, well, the penalties are a lottery which we took well and they failed with theirs.”
Paraguay will now take on Venezuela in the last four while Peru will face Uruguay. This is after Chile, Argentina and Colombia all joined Brazil in crashing out of the tournament.
Uruguay are the new favourites to be lifting the trophy this weekend, but that surely counts for nothing after an unbelievable turn of events in the four quarter-final matches.