Kai Havertz, Nick Woltemade and Jonathan Tah all missed in a dramatic penalty shootout as four-time champions Germany national football team were shockingly eliminated from the World Cup by lower-ranked Paraguay national football team in the Round of 32 on Monday in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
The game finished 1-1 after extra time and Paraguay won in sudden death. It was one of the biggest upsets of the tournament and ended Germany’s perfect World Cup shootout record. It was the first time Germany had ever lost a World Cup penalty shootout, a strange turn for a nation known for calm under pressure.
Paraguay took the lead just before halftime when Julio Enciso rose to his feet well inside the box to head home a direct delivery from Miguel Almirón. Despite dominating possession with almost 80% of the ball in the first half, Germany were punished for their lack of cutting edge in the final third.
Germany responded with Kai Havertz in the second half, whose run was precise enough to meet a dangerous cross in such a way as to score a calm header past goalkeeper Orlando Gill. With the equaliser the momentum shifted and Germany went for a winner from that point on.
Manuel Neuer was mostly a spectator for long periods, but Paraguay’s compact defensive shape and disciplined structure forced Germany into wide areas and speculative crosses. Jonathan Tah even thought he had scored a late winner in extra time, only for VAR to intervene and disallow the goal due to a foul in the build-up involving Waldemar Anton blocking the goalkeeper.
Extra time was a battle of endurance. Germany piled on the pressure with set pieces and repeated deliveries into the box, but Paraguay’s goalkeeper Orlando Gill made a number of crucial saves including a close-range stop from Tah and a vital intervention in the 119th minute to deny Anton.
The game went to penalties and Germany’s long-standing reputation from the spot was under intense pressure. Germany had won six of their previous seven major tournament shootouts so what followed was even more remarkable.
The shootout swung dramatically in both directions. Havertz missed and Nick Woltemade also failed under pressure. Paraguay also failed to settle the game earlier, keeping Germany alive for a few minutes. A save from Neuer against Fabián Balbuena and a miss by Antonio Sanabria opened a narrow window for Germany to come back.
But the decisive moment came when Jonathan Tah skied his penalty over the bar and Paraguay clinched sudden-death victory. José Canale took the winning kick to send Paraguay to the Round of 16, and players and staff were in tears.
Paraguay goalkeeper Orlando Gill said he studied every German penalty taker in detail in his post-match interview. His composure and anticipation made him one of the top scorers, and in a shootout that will go down in Paraguay’s history as one of its greatest international achievements.
For Germany, the defeat is another painful chapter in a long-standing underperformance at big tournaments. They won the 2014 World Cup but are now two early exits away and it is really hard to see how transition, squad balance, and their ability to translate that success to knockout success. They had possession and territory for a long time but they didn’t get clinical finishes at times.
Paraguay will carry momentum into the next round, where they will meet the winner of France vs Sweden in Philadelphia. The victory not only matched the 2002 World Cup defeat against Germany, but also was their most significant modern-day knockout victory.
Andy Davies, who has been the top-flight referee who has been at the helm in VAR at every level, said that key decisions like the disallowed Tah goal were also a clear demonstration of the growing role technology has played in high-stakes knockout matches where a few decisions can change the course of the entire tournament.
At the end of the day, the match was about fine margins: Germany’s control versus Paraguay’s resilience, experience versus belief, and expectation versus execution. Paraguay held their nerve when it mattered most on this night.
