Paraguay Stun Germany in Historic Penalty Shootout as Four-Time World Champions Crash Out of World Cup

Boston, Massachusetts – Germany exited the World Cup in Boston not with a whimper or even a cry of pain, just an extended wrestle into the dust at the hands of a thrillingly dogged Paraguay, followed by the most extraordinary penalty shootout that saw the four-time world champions suffer their first shootout defeat since 1976.

Not only did Germany lose their first shootout since the original Panenka one of 1976. They did so in a whirl of errors, shanked kicks, and what amounted to a sporting meltdown in the New England gloaming. Paraguay will now progress to play a last-16 tie in Philadelphia, but not before celebrating this result as surely the greatest in their football history. And rightly so, after a performance of wonderful heart and defensive discipline.

For Julian Nagelsmann, New England feels like the end of the road. This is not the Germany of the high-end academy boom years. But they're better than this. Jürgen Klopp has spent the current tournament cheerfully judging Nagelsmann from the TV studio, apologising for judging him, and generally trying to pretend he wouldn't actively love to have a go in the job. That chance might just be around the corner. Be careful what you wish for Jürgen.

The Shootout That Shocked the World

The players linked arms. The stadium fell into a state of deep and painful unease. Havertz missed the first kick, waiting, waiting some more then producing a weak, telegraphed effort that was well saved by Orlando Gill.

For there, as Paraguay slotted their penalties with startling levels of calm and skill, you could feel Germany already edging toward the exit door, checking their luggage, preparing for the shared public angst. Nick Woltemade mooched in and mustered another weak, saved kick.

There was time for Antonio Sanabria to miss and Fabián Balbuena to have his kick saved as the hitherto nonexistent Manuel Neuer aura briefly returned. No matter, Tah hoofed his effort absolutely miles over the bar. And José Canale produced the final cut, slow death at the end of the much longer slow death of Boston Stadium.

The Paraguayan bench streamed on to the pitch. And that, finally, was that.

How the Match Unfolded

Boston Stadium has been a lovely host site, a huge rolling green and fragrant campus with a sense of comfortable old-fashioned grandeur, the kind of place where you half expect a vast presidential float to come rumbling in at one end. It was full here at kick-off, packed out to its sweeping upper tiers, blasted by the violent afternoon sun, a ziggurat of sweeping, swooping angles.

And this was a bright, lively game at the start, for at least the opening 70 seconds. By the six-minute mark the first Mexican wave was breaking out.

And by half-time Paraguay had produced what was in its own way a perfectly minimalist 45 minutes. No wonder Germany looked bewildered as they trudged off for the break. At that stage they had taken 79% possession and made 308 passes to Paraguay's 55. They were also 1-0 down and panting for breath in a very firm but very deathly Paraguayan defensive chokehold.

Paraguay's head coach, Gustavo Alfaro, has a haggard, agreeably soulful look, a 63-year-old itinerant Argentinian with a belief in deep, throbbingly morbid defensive football, who has also talked at this World Cup of the duty of the sport to represent the poor, the people, the anti-Fifa.

And Alfaro's patterns settled over this game early on: Germany moving laterally in front of a fiercely dogged Paraguayan 4-5-1. This was at last a fluid 4-5-1. Occasionally it shifted to 4-6-0. There was no space to move, no angles to be found as Germany pressed up against that reinforced barricade.

Paraguay's Historic Goal

Then Paraguay scored, out of nowhere, applying pressure and urgency at the perfect moment. This was a goal so smart, and indeed so surprising, the finish was a power-header by Julio Enciso, who is 5ft 6in tall and the 17th shortest player at this World Cup.

It was brilliantly made. Manuel Neuer punched clear Miguel Almirón's corner. The ball was recycled back out to him and he played a really smart little nudged reverse pass into the run of Matías Galarza, steaming up on the outside. His cross was hard, flat and whipped perfectly on to the head of Enciso, who had a jarringly huge expanse of green all around him, enough to make you blink a little in a game of such stifling spaces everywhere else.

Germany made it 1-1 on 54 minutes by doing something different. This was not exactly slinging it into the box for the big man. But it was a high-craft version, Florian Wirtz sneaking out to the left touchline, jinking inside then whipping in a fine diagonal cross. The finish from Kai Havertz was lovely, an elegant pivoting flicked header directed on its way and into the corner.

VAR Controversy in Extra Time

Paraguay had defended themselves into the ground by now, dropping so deep they were pretty much entirely behind their own goalline. A Germany goal was coming. And it finally arrived on 103 minutes – or did it?

Jonathan Tah seemed to have scored with a brilliant back-post header, but it was ruled out on VAR review as Waldemar Anton had fouled the goalkeeper as the ball came in, and also because frankly, the fates had long since decreed this to be a day of footballing pain that must end in the most agonising way for everyone concerned.

The Aftermath

Even in a game like this the World Cup does strange and darkly wonderful things. Across 120 minutes these two teams had six shots on target. For long periods the entire spectacle seemed to have condensed into an oddly unignorable sporting migraine, and an incurable one too, just light and sound and a large green space with moving shapes, tortured patterns, endless stubbed toes and false leads. But still, by the end it felt epic.

Germany's exit marks the end of an era. The four-time world champions have now been eliminated in the knockout stages for the first time since 2022, and questions will be asked about Nagelsmann's future and the direction of German football.