Football in Paraguay

Charter of
Club Olimpia .

As the "father of football in Paraguay " which is considered Dutchman William Paats , in 1894 came to Paraguay and as a sports teacher at a middle school in the capital Asunción worked, where he made known his students with the "English sport". Together they founded Club Olimpia, the country's first football club, in 1902 . The club has maintained its position at the top to this day, is the record champion of the local soccer league with 40 titles and the only club in the country that was able to win the Copa Libertadores (1979, 1990, 2002) and once even the World Cup (1979).

National championships

A year after Olimpia was launched, a second club was created with the Guaraní Club. Together with four other clubs that had emerged over the next few years, these teams launched the first football championship in 1906. The first official game for the first soccer championship in Paraguay was played between Olimpia and Guaraní and ended 1-1. In the end, Club Guaraní went down in the annals as the first football champions in the country and Olimpia took second place. The derby of these two rivals is also known as Clásico mas añejo (dt. Oldest derby ) because of its history .

Because Guaraní has ​​fallen behind over the years and the Club Cerro Porteño, founded in 1912, has long since grown to become Olimpia's main rival (it has so far recorded 31 championship titles), their encounter has been the most important game of the year in Paraguay for decades and is known as Clásico del called fútbol paraguayo .

The second league was played for the first time in 1910 and the professional league was introduced in 1935.

The national team

The Paraguayan national soccer team has won the Copa América twice ( 1953 and 1979 ) and was able to qualify eight times for participation in a soccer world championship. While she failed in her first appearances ( 1930 , 1950 and 1958 ) in the preliminary round, she reached the round of 16 for the first time in 1986 , where she still clearly failed against England (0: 3). Twelve years later Paraguay prevailed against Spain and Bulgaria in the group stage and in the round of 16 brought the hosts and eventual world champions to despair with their tactically clever defensive game (as well as the necessary luck and a brilliantly laid-out Chilavert ). Les Bleus scored the winning goal with a golden goal by Laurent Blanc in the 113th minute. It was the first golden goal at a soccer world championship. Again twelve years later Paraguay was able to advance to the quarter-finals - for the first and so far only time - where the Albiroja again narrowly failed (0: 1 through a goal by David Villa in the 83rd minute) against the eventual winner .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Próximo personaje será William Paats (Spanish; article from September 16, 2014)
2. ^ Football World Atlas (Copress, Munich 2001), ISBN 3-7679-0651-1 , p. 134
3. ↑ ^{a b} Paraguay - League History 1906-1964 at RSSSF (English)
4. ↑ Cien Años de Historia ( Memento of the original from December 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Spanish; accessed July 19, 2016)  
5. ↑ Paraguay - List of Champions and Runners Up at RSSSF (English)
6. ↑ France - Paraguay 1-0 (WC 1998) on YouTube (English)