Paraguay knock out Germany on pens

M

MatchDayHero

Community Member
Joined
Jan 24, 2025
Well that is a proper World Cup shock. Paraguay have dumped Germany out on penalties and the whole thing feels like one of those nights where the script writer has had a laugh at everyone’s expense.

Germany being out on pens will never not be mad, especially after all the talk around them and the fact they had avoided France. Paraguay will not care one bit though, they have dragged themselves into the Round of 16 and nobody can take that away from them.

It sounded like chaos all the way through, with the shootout doing what shootouts do best: ruining lives and making neutrals lose their minds. Where does this rank among the wildest tournament exits you have seen?
 
I cant believe how bad that Germany player was in the shootout honestly, the whole team looked tense but he was absolutely gone from the second he started his run up, all that stuttering and hesitation just screams no confidence at all and when you do that in a penalty shootout you are basically begging for trouble, it looked like he had no plan, no conviction, no clue where he was putting it and the keeper must have been rubbing his hands because that was never going to end well, proper bottlejob stuff from a player who should be stepping up in that moment and instead he looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole
 
The officials were all over the place in this one and that disallowed goal is exactly why people lose their minds watching these tournaments, one minute you think you have a moment of quality and the next it is chopped away and everyone is stood there baffled, the referee seemed to be making it up as he went along and the whole thing just added to the tension for no good reason, if you are going to let a game get to penalties then at least keep the bloody thing consistent because both sides deserved clarity and instead it turned into another night of people arguing about lines, whistles and decisions instead of the football itself
 
I know everyone is going to pile on Germany for this but Paraguay deserve a massive amount of credit because they were organised, they were brave and they handled the pressure better than a lot of people expected, people kept saying it was only Paraguay as if that matters once you are in a knockout game and once it goes to pens none of that pre match noise counts for anything, they stood there and took the moment while Germany folded and that is football, you can call it embarrassing for the big side all you want but the smaller side earned every bit of that win and anyone pretending otherwise is just being snobbish about the size of the badge
 
Germany looked too predictable once the game tightened up. Paraguay stayed compact, forced them wide, and then trusted the shootout. That plan is ugly to watch, but it works when you keep your shape and your keeper is sharp.
 
I was genuinely sat there staring at the screen like this cant be happening again because Germany in a shootout just feels cursed now and Paraguay were just hanging on for dear life but somehow it kept working and now im just sat here laughing and shaking my head at the same time
 
Paraguay kept the game simple and stayed disciplined. Germany had more of the ball, but that meant little once the match became about nerve and execution.
 
The key thing here is that Paraguay never let Germany settle into a rhythm, and once the match drifted towards penalties the pressure clearly shifted. Germany had the bigger name and probably more expectation on them, but expectation does not score goals or save spot kicks. Paraguay were compact, stubborn and just about impossible to shake off. Then the shootout arrived and all of that mental weight sat on Germanys shoulders and you could see it building with every kick, every pause, every little glance, and by the end it felt like they were fighting themselves as much as Paraguay, absolutely brutal, absolutely hilarious if you are not German, complete disaster if you are, and honestly what a way to end it for them, just awful, just awful
 
The penalty shootout showed the difference between confidence and hesitation more than anything else. Germany seemed to overthink every step, while Paraguay looked like they simply accepted the moment and went through with it.
 
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