Paraguay vs South Africa - 2002 World Cup Group Match

Home: World Cup 2002: Korea-Japan Finals: 1st Round: Match Report

Sunday June 2nd, 2002

Injury Time Penalty

An injury-time penalty helped South Africa earn a share of the points in the second South America vs Africa contest of the day.

This really was a game of two halves with Paraguay controlling most of the first hour, then switching off when they had a 2-0 lead and paying for it at the death.

Right at the start of the match, Roque Santa Cruz was trying to earn a penalty for Paraguay, by diving over the South African goalkeeper and pulling his face in agony.

In the tenth minute, Paraguay's Francisco Arce offered a glimpse of how dangerous he could be from dead-ball situations; his free-kick tipped over the bar by Arendse.

The Slovakian referee seemed to be missing a lot of the holding and sly pushing although he didn't fall for the Paraguayan theatrics.

It was over an hour before Santa Cruz had his first real chance for Paraguay - blocked by Andre Arendse.

1:0
Six minutes before half-time Roque Santa Cruz headed home, from Francisco Arce's free-kick, to give the South Americans a slight sense of relief.

Three minutes later Santa Cruz saw another header tipped over the bar.

On the whole, South Africa were very disappointing in the first half. Maybe they thought they could pack the defense like Senegal did against France and get a result.

The thing they overlooked is that Senegal had some rhythm going forward.

Half-time: Paraguay 1 - South Africa 0

Shortly into the second half, Sibusiso Zuma should have pulled South Africa level from six-yards out. He was completely in the wrong place to try a bicycle kick and a straight forward knock-in would have been the right thing to do.

Some people moaned about how the Germans attacked Saudi Arabia yesterday..... but it was ten times better than this.... well, at least with a couple more goals it would have been.

2:0
55 mins - Direct free-kick into the top left corner of the goal.... Francisco Arce the scorer.

58 mins - A half-chance falls to McCarthey.....

2:1
63 mins - South Africa show some life up front but their ideas about finishing it all off are lame... they even get back into the game with a clumsy own goal...... although it was credited to Tebeho Mokena.

South Africa sensed they had a chance to get a point out of the game and Paraguay made things easier by switching off.

With fifteen minutes to go, Mukansi managed to get down the right and his low cross caused problems for the Paraguayan defense. The Paraguayan defenders seemed to miss Chilavert shouting in their ear.

2:2
Drama at the end of the game as South Africa get awarded a penalty.

Ricardo Tavarelli is booked, after he brought down Sibusiso Zuma, and Quinton Fortune kept his nerve to strike the ball clean past the Paraguayan.

Final Score:
Paraguay 2 - South Africa 2

Man of the Match:
Quinton Fortune for keeping his cool and leveling the score for South Africa, in the dying minutes of a game Paraguay didn't really deserve to win - or looked like they wanted to in the last half an hour. Well done South Africa for hanging in there and coming back from 0-2 down.

Yellow Cards:
Aaron Mokoena (3 mins)
Pierre Issa (9 mins)
Julio C�sar C�ceres (35 mins)
Benedict McCarthy (38 mins)
Sibusiso Zuma (45 mins)
Denis Caniza (65 mins)
Ricardo Tavarelli (90 mins)
Juan Carlos Franco (93 mins)

The Teams

Paraguay:
22 Ricardo Tavarelli; 2 Francisco Arce, 5 Celso Ayala, 18 Julio C�sar C�ceres, 21 Denis Caniza, 4 Carlos Gamarra; 10 Roberto Acu�a, 8 Guido Alvarenga (14 Diego Gavilan - 66 mins), 11 Jorge Campos (16 Gustavo Morinigo - 73 mins), 6 Estanislao Struway (17 Juan Carlos Franco - 86); 9 Roque Santa Cruz.

South Africa:
16 Andre Arendse; 3 Bradley Carnell, 13 Pierre Issa (9 McDonald Mukansi - 27 mins), 4. Aaron Mokoena, 2 Cyril Nzama, 19. Lucas Radebe; 7 Quinton Fortune, 12 Tebeho Mokoena, 6 Ntuthuko Sibaya, 15 Sibusiso Zuma; 17 Benedict McCarthy (23 George Koumantarkis - 78 mins).

Referee: Lubos Michel