Vinícius Junior scored two first-half goals to lead Brazil to a 4-1 victory over Paraguay on Friday night and put themselves in position to advance from Group D of the Copa América.
Savinho also scored a goal for Brazil in the first half and Lucas Paqueta scored from the penalty spot in the second half. Omar Alderete scored Paraguay’s goal.
There were many tense moments with five yellow cards and one red. Andrés Cubas was sent off for a red card in the 81st minute, forcing Paraguay to play the last part of the match with one man less. Yellow cards were shown to Wendell, Junior and Paquetá of Brazil and Fabián Balbuena and Hernesto Caballero of Paraguay.
The win was a big response for the Seleção Canarinho, which opened the tournament on Tuesday with a scoreless draw against Costa Rica despite outshooting its opponent 18-2.
With four points, Brazil is two behind group leader Colombia, which defeated Costa Rica 3-0 earlier on Friday. A win or draw for Brazil against Colombia on Tuesday secures one of the group’s two spots in the round of 16. Brazil also has a six-goal differential advantage over Costa Rica, so a loss will likely not knock out the nine-time Copa America champions.
Brazil’s Vinicius Junior (R) celebrates with teammate Rodrygo after scoring his team’s third goal.
Brazil has had a tough time against Paraguay in the Copa America, having drawn all five of their previous encounters. That is the second-longest unbeaten streak against Brazil in this tournament, which Paraguay also participated in from 1963 to 1983.
But Brazil won the most recent meeting, defeating Paraguay 4-0 two years ago in World Cup qualifying, and there was little doubt about the outcome of this match after two late goals opened the scoring in what was a disputed end of the first half.
Moments after teammate Bruno Guimaraes hit the crossbar, Savinho put Brazil 2-0 up in the 43rd minute.
The two teams engaged in a scrum in extra time, with Chilean referee Piero Maza Gomez handing out yellow cards to Wendell and Balbuena after three minutes. Junior then delivered the devastating blow five minutes into extra time.
Paraguay had its chances and even outshot Brazil 8-5, including 4-3 in shots on goal. Brazilian goalkeeper Alisson Becker made a tremendous save by diving to his right to prevent a goal by Damián Bobodilla 15 minutes into the match.
However, early in the second half, Alderete scored to reduce the lead to 3-1.
Then, 17 minutes later, Paqueta made up for a missed first-half penalty by converting to give Brazil back its three-goal lead.
Brazil coach Dorival Júnior made a bold and controversial move by deciding not to start Raphinha. The move, with national team legend Neymar watching from the stands, clearly paid off.
Raphinha came on as a substitute at the end of the match, in the 72nd minute in place of Savinho.
