Argentina teeters on the edge of missing its first World Cup since 1970. Despite losing three of the last four qualifying games, including a 3-1 defeat to rivals Brazil on Saturday, Argentina coach Diego Maradona is approaching Wednesday’s critical match at Paraguay with unflagging swagger. “We’ll go (to Paraguay) with the same confidence as always,” he said.
“We’ve got to lift out heads quickly,” Argentina midfielder Javier Zanetti said. “Soccer doesn’t give you much time. It will all depend on us being able to show the best of ourselves against Paraguay, which would get us closer to South Africa. We have to have confidence in the work we’ve been doing.”
A loss against Paraguay could drop Argentina into sixth place in the 10-team South American qualifying group. The top four countries in the group qualify automatically for the World Cup while the fifth place country enters a playoff with the fifth place team from Concacaf. Paraguay, which is trying to reach it fourth straight World Cup, drew 1-1 with Argentina in their first qualifying match in June 2008.