Penalty Para: Paraguay 0-0 Japan AET, Paraguay won 5-3 on penalties 29/6/10

Paraguay line-up: Villar (c), Morel, Bonet, Santa Cruz (Cardozo, 94'), Benitez (Valdez, 60'), Vera, Da Silva, Riveros, Barrios, Ortigoza (Barreto, 75'), Alcaraz
Japan line-up: Kawashima, Abe (K.Nakamura, 81'), Komano, Tulio, Nagatomo, Endo, Matsui (Okazaki, 65'), Okubo (Tamada, 106'), Hasebe (c), Honda, Nakazawa

Probably the worst game of the round of 16, the game offered very little in terms of entertainment until the penalty shoot-out, the first of this year's World Cup. As both teams have never reached the quarter finals neither team wanted to lose and it showed. However Paraguay's win ensures a South American dominance in the quarter finals with a South American nation in each of the four matches. Paraguay had the better part of possession but couldn't find an opening during the early moments. Barrios hit a shot straight at the keeper before Matsui came the closest to scoring as his shot smashed the crossbar from long range. Santa Cruz has failed to make his mark thus far in the World Cup and could have made amends but his shot from eight yards via a corner sailed wide. Japan looked dangerous yet again from their free-kicks but Paraguay's defensive unit were able to clear any of that danger. Japan could have gone in at half-time with the lead when they broke on the Paraguayan defence with more attackers than defenders, however Honda failed to acknowledge a decent run from Okubo and fired his long range effort wide.

The second half was as good as the first but Paraguay sent the first jab to Japan, but Ortigoza's run came to an end when he was surrounded by Japanese defenders. Again both teams created few chances and the ones they did create failed to pose any threat to the goalkeepers. Santa Cruz, Tulio, Nakamura and Benitez a few of those culprits who could have potentially made their opposing goalkeepers sweat. This plunged the game into extra time and again chances were few and far between and a penalty shoot-out looked ominous after 90 minutes. Again Okazaki, Barrios, Barretto and Valdez maybe could have done better to prevent the shoot-out.

But the final whistle came and it was to be a penalty shoot-out, with a very high quality of penalty taking. It was arguably the most entertaining part of the match and only one of the takers missed. Paraguay went first and never missed a spot-kick but Yuichi Komano unfortunately hit his penalty against the bar at 3-2 leaving Paraguay to just about squeeze through to the quarter finals.