Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Pretoria - Paraguay squeezed through to the quarter-finals of the FIFA World Cup for the first time in their history as Yuichi Komano's penalty miss sent Japan crashing out of the tournament at Loftus Versfeld on Tuesday.
With the game goalless at the end of extra time, World Cup South Africa witnessed its first shoot-out and, after Komano had clipped the crossbar, Oscar Cardozo rolled home the winning spot-kick to give the South Americans a 5-3 win.
Neither Paraguay nor Japan had ever reached a FIFA World Cup quarter-final, and perhaps the weight of expectation explained a largely uninspiring contest.
Paraguay enjoyed the majority of possession in the early stages but were struggling to find their range as much as their opponents
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