Spain Faces Early Departure After 0-0 Tie With Paraguay
Widely considered a potential contender before the World Cup began, Spain instead might be heading home after the first round.
Looking surprisingly lifeless for most of its game Friday against Paraguay at Saint-Etienne, Spain put itself in a precarious position by playing a scoreless draw in Group D competition.
The result guaranteed Nigeria will win the group and left Paraguay in second place with two points after its second consecutive 0-0 outing.
Spain and Bulgaria, each with one point, finish first-round play Wednesday by facing each other at Lens. To advance, Spain will have to defeat Bulgaria and Paraguay would have to lose its first-round finale, against Nigeria on Wednesday at Toulouse.
“Wednesday will be like the final,” said Javier Clemente, Spain’s coach. “But if we beat Bulgaria and Nigeria do what they did to us against Paraguay, we can still make it.”
Clemente made five changes from the lineup that started in Spain’s 3-2 tournament-opening loss to Nigeria. But the changes had little impact.
Paraguay was stronger at the outset, and midfielder Miguel Benitez caused enough problems for Spanish defender Sergi to bring him down and get a yellow card in the ninth minute. Benitez also took a dangerous, 25-yard free kick that was saved by Spanish goalkeeper Andoni Zubizarreta, whose 125th international appearance tied the record for a goalkeeper that had been set by England’s Peter Shilton.
Spain did have a good chance in the 21st minute, on a header by Pizzi, but Paraguayan goalkeeper Jose Luis Chilavert made an acrobatic save, lunging to tip it over the crossbar.
Chilavert and Zubizarreta were central figures in the drama for several reasons. Among them was Zubizarreta’s weak performance in Spain’s loss to Nigeria, an effort that drew loud criticism from fans and media but elicited support from his coach as well as from Chilavert.
With the empathy only someone who has played the position can have, Chilavert sympathized with Zubizarreta’s misplay of a seemingly harmless cross by Garba Lawal on Nigeria’s second goal, which put Spain at a deficit it never made up. But Chilavert might have only made matters worse when he added he dreamed of scoring a goal for Paraguay.
It wasn’t an idle boast: Chilavert often takes free kicks and has a powerful, left-footed shot. But the thought of becoming infamous as the first goalkeeper to give up a goal to another goalkeeper might have been playing on Zubizarreta’s mind. Perhaps that’s what Chilavert intended.
Chilavert got his chance in the first half Friday, taking a thunderous free kick that deflected off a player in the defensive wall.
And Zubizarreta, 36, who has said this will be his final competition for his country, showed few signs of nerves Friday. Spain’s captain and an assistant to Clemente, he displayed the calm needed in a situation as perilous as Spain found itself in Friday.
Spain began to apply some offensive pressure as the second half wore on, testing Chilavert and causing some confusion among Paraguay’s defenders. In the 56th minute, Chilavert tipped a drive by Luis Enrique over the crossbar, and he stopped a header by Enrique in the 69th minute.
Paraguay, however, mounted few attacks and often left Benitez as its lone attacker.
The last few minutes were played at a surprisingly brisk pace. In the lengthy injury time that followed the second half, each team had a few good scoring chances; the best occurred when Spain’s Fernando Hierro had a free kick in the final seconds, but it was blocked by Paraguayan defender Celso Ayala.
