{"id":1057887,"date":"2026-06-29T17:00:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T17:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1057887\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T17:00:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T17:00:20","slug":"germany-vs-paraguay-preview-knockout-spot-on-the-line-at-the-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1057887\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany vs Paraguay preview: knockout spot on the line at the World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

It may not appear as the most eye-catching fixture during the first lot of knockout fixtures now that all of the groups have been decided at the 23rd edition of the World Cup, but both sides will have reasons to feel confident heading into this intriguing tie.<\/p>\n

Two very different paths to reach knockout dreams<\/p>\n

Despite both sides reaching the first aim of qualifying for the knockout phase of the tournament, the road there was filled with plenty of drama and eventual hope for both nations as they approach kick-off.<\/p>\n

Germany top Group E despite last-game loss<\/p>\n

Germany<\/strong><\/a> sealed their spot before their final Group E match against Ecuador, following a dominant 7-1 win<\/strong> over debutants Cura\u00e7ao, while their second match saw the European side come from behind to beat the Ivory Coast by two goals to one, thanks to a brace from substitute star Deniz Undav<\/strong> that fired the four-time champions to their 21st appearance in the knockout stages of this year’s tournament.<\/p>\n

Despite the peace of mind of knowing their knockout place was confirmed, Germany were unable to come through the group phase with a perfect record, as fellow knockout contenders Ecuador managed to overturn a very quick German lead to win in New Jersey in a 2-1 victory<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although this may have potentially taken a knock on their confidence, Germany still managed to finish top of the pile in Group E<\/strong><\/a> despite this loss, and now square up with Paraguay, who had arguably a much more chaotic entrance to this phase of the competition.<\/p>\n

Paraguay push through via third place<\/p>\n

Facing the host nation of any tournament in their own backyard is tough enough for any side, but when Paraguay found themselves 3-0 down against the USA in the first half alone of their opening game, it may have already seemed too much to ask of the South American side, given they would still have to face both Australia and Turkey in the later stages of Group E.<\/p>\n

With that first game ending in a 4-1 defeat<\/strong> to America, Paraguay gave themselves much-needed hope after an impressive 1-0 victory over one of many people’s dark horses for this summer’s tournament, Turkey \u2014 despite former Newcastle midfielder Miguel Almir\u00f3n<\/strong> being sent off just prior to the conclusion of the first half, after the Paraguayan covered his mouth and provoked Turkish full-back Mert M\u00fcld\u00fcr.<\/p>\n

The final match-up with Australia at the San Francisco Stadium ended in a goalless draw<\/strong><\/a> between the sides, and was enough for the former quarter-finalists to reach the knockout stages as they finished 7th among the third-best-placed teams, leading to tonight’s round of 32 clash.<\/p>\n

\"Last<\/p>\n

Miguel Almir\u00f3n (left) can be seen distraught following being sent off after covering his mouth, amidst the new rules for this summer’s tournament (Credit @RNS.)<\/p>\n

Head-to-head and past knockout appearances<\/p>\n

Prior to this summer’s World Cup being extended from thirty-two to forty-eight teams, there hadn’t been an extra round of thirty-two in the competition since it began back in 1930.<\/p>\n

In all of the twenty-three tournaments since that first one almost a century ago, Germany have only failed to advance beyond the group stages twice, with their last early exit happening at the previous event in Qatar just four years ago.<\/p>\n

Paraguay, meanwhile, are only entering their fifth knockout phase, with their last appearance at this stage coming at the South African edition of the competition sixteen years ago, where they reached the quarter-finals but eventually lost to eventual champions Spain<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In terms of the two sides meeting one another, they have only met competitively once, back in the South Korean edition of the World Cup in 2002, where the European side were victorious in a tight 1-0 victory<\/strong> thanks to a late strike from Oliver Neuville<\/strong> that knocked Paraguay out.<\/p>\n

On paper at least, it seems to heavily favour the four-time winners Germany for this fixture, especially with the missing creativity of Miguel Almir\u00f3n now sidelined for the occasion.<\/p>\n

The pressure, you would imagine, sits with the Germans, given their lack of recent success ever since they last lifted the trophy twelve years ago in Brazil.<\/p>\n

But if this World Cup has shown anything from the group-stage fixtures, it’s that nothing can be ruled out and each team is here to compete, with the fairytale of Cape Verde’s knockout dream<\/strong> catching the headlines for the right reasons \u2014 a reminder for Paraguay that anything can happen in football.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It may not appear as the most eye-catching fixture during the first lot of knockout fixtures now that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1057888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5310],"tags":[186,21434,2000,299,1824,290480,22709,461,659,1514],"class_list":["post-1057887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-australia","tag-ecuador","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-germany","tag-miguel-almiron","tag-paraguay","tag-turkey","tag-usa","tag-world-cup"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116834470833194053","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1057887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1057887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1057887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1057888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1057887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1057887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1057887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}