From Newsgroup: rec.sport.soccer
On 20/06/2026 06:43, Ll|-o wrote:
At Levi's Stadium, Santa Clara:
Turkey 0-1 Paraguay
1' Matias Galarza
This game saw what was so far this World Cup's quickest goal, a long
range shot by Galarza that found its way towards |cakir's far left
corner, after 1 minute and 4 seconds. Turkey seemed to feel the sucker
punch and took a while to reestablish themselves, but were all over
Paraguay when they did.
Into first half injury time, Paraguay had a player sent off: while the
game was stopped and players argued with the referee, Miguel Almiron
covered his mouth and said something to Mert M|+ld|+r. I have no idea what he said, but it doesn't really matter, as FIFA has stipulated that this
is a red card offence. Almiron was duly sent off, AFAIK the first ever
red card of this kind, and there couldn't be a clearer textbook example
of what the rule says.
The second half was mostly an attack vs defense drill, with Turkey
making most of the play and getting a number of very near misses, while Paraguay defended as hard and desperately as they could. Paraguay got themselves in Turkey's half of the field a couple of times, but really
set their stall to defend and resist the Turkish pressure.
In the end, this was your archetypical Paraguayan victory. Turkey
deserved better, but were unlucky a number of times and paid the price
for that. This result also means that, given the new tiebreakers, the
United States clinched first place in this group, Paraguay and Australia will duel for second in the last matchday, while Turkey are now out of contention for a R32 spot.
Best regards,
Ll|-o
Nice report.
In true 90's rss style I watched this on "tape delay" by streaming as it
was a 4am kickoff in my time zone and I'd already been up until 1am
following the Scotland - Morocco game.
Was this really what Turkish fans waited 24 years for? Elimination after
2 matches?
Whilst there were some naive decisions and lack of precision in the
final third to blame, it was also two matches where anything that could
have gone wrong for Turkey pretty much did (concede against Australia immediately after nearly scoring, long distance goal after 70 seconds,
our own headed chance bouncing off the crossbar then the post -
basically bouncing off anywhere but the net!).
A word on Paraguay, it may have been brought about by going ahead very
early then needing to defend for 89 minutes to stay in the tournament,
but they displayed a hilarious level of dirty play, time wasting etc.
Some of their antics looked like something out of a spoof movie.
The silver lining for me? I saved -u8000 in flights, hotel fees and match tickets not travelling to North America to watch two disappointing performances and a now dead rubber match against the USA. Winning! lol
Godspeed to all of you with teams still in the competition.
RM
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