Qatar got a wildcard to participate in this competition. The 2022 world cup host’s will want to use this as Preparatory measures. Qatar’s 2-0 loss to Brazil earlier this month ended a seven-game winning run, with six of those victories coming ‘to nil’, as they surged through triumphantly in the Asian Cup event. Taking on Brazil was their reality check on facing Latin opponents and to be fair, they didn’t do badly.
Paraguay have managed just one win in seven friendlies (W1, D2, L4) in the run up to this Copa América opener against Asian Cup winners Qatar, and whilst the South Americans are favourites here, they do have a rather unremarkable H2H record against the Gulf nation (W1, D1, L1)
This is definitely going to be a different tournament than the Asian cup for Qatar. Paraguay are masters at the opening game of this tournament, last losing their first group game back in 1975. Paraguay was just unlucky to not qualify for the World Cup from the CONMEBOL Federation. the quality of opposition that Paraguay takes on a regular basis will have prepared them to take on this opponent, who in fact is less experienced in such stages.
We expect them to take advantage of Qatar’s inexperience against these set of teams, and carve out a win in the first round of games.
OUR PREDICTION
PARAGUAY WIN
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