Soccer Football – World Cup – South American Qualifiers – Peru v Paraguay – Estadio Nacional, Lima, Peru – March 29, 2022 Peru’s Gianluca Lapadula celebrates scoring their first goal with teammates REUTERS/Sebastian Castaneda
March 30, 2022
LIMA (Reuters) -Peru sealed a World Cup playoff spot on Tuesday after a 2-0 win over Paraguay secured fifth place in the South American qualifying group.
Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador and Uruguay had already secured South America’s four automatic spots.
Peru will meet either the United Arab Emirates or Australia, who play the Asian confederation playoff in Doha on June 7, for a place in Qatar. The inter-confederation playoff will take place in Doha on June 13 or 14.
Peru also had to go through a playoff to reach the last World Cup in Russia, defeating New Zealand over two legs to qualify for their first finals since Spain in 1982.
On Tuesday, Peru started the night with 21 points, one more than Colombia and two ahead of Chile, knowing that a win over Paraguay in the final round of qualifying would be enough to wrap up the playoff spot.
They went ahead with just four minutes gone, Gianluca Lapadula running on to a defence-splitting pass from Christian Cueva to poke the ball in off the post.
Three minutes before halftime it was 2-0, Cueva the architect again. His work outside a packed penalty box led to a cross finished off by Yoshimar Yotun.
Ricardo Gareca’s side controlled the second half without making many more chances and were content to see the game out and send the capacity crowd at the National stadium into raptures at the final whistle.
In the night’s other games, Brazil beat Bolivia 4-0 in La Paz thanks to goals from Lucas Paqueta, Bruno Guimaraes and a double for Richarlison.
Argentina drew 1-1 at Ecuador after Julian Alvarez’s early goal was cancelled out in stoppage time by the home side’s Enner Valencia, who converted the rebound after his penalty was saved.
Colombia beat Venezuela 1-0 thanks to a James Rodriguez penalty, while Luis Suarez, with a bicycle kick, and Federico Valverde gave Uruguay a 2-0 win over Chile in Santiago.
(Reporting by Andrew Downie in London; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
Source: One America News Network
