IFFHS CONTINENTAL NEWS AND STATS - SOUTH AMERICA
Statistics on WC 2026 qualifiers in South America (match-day 11)
Paraguay vs Argentina 2-1
*Argentina lost a match after opening the score for the first time since their debut in the World Cup 2022 against Saudi Arabia (1-2).
*It was just the 2nd loss of Argentina in the history of World Cup qualifiers in the games where they opened the score (they did it exactly 100 times, with 84 wins and 14 draws).
The first such defeat was on 20 November 2007 vs Colombia.
*Last 3 defeats Argentina suffered against the opponents led by Argentine coaches: 0-2 against Marcelo Bielsa's Uruguay, 1-2 against Néstor Lorenzo's Colombia and now against Gustavo Alfaro's Paraguay.
*Paraguay has come back (to win) in 2 qualifiers in a row (from 0-1 to 2-1 also against Venezuela), something that no South American team has achieved since 2001, when Ecuador did so coming back against Paraguay and Peru.
*Paraguay have beaten Brazil and Argentina in the same qualifying campaign for the second time, after the 2010 edition.
*Toni Sanabria's overhead goal (PICTURE) is the first such goal both scored by Paraguay and conceded by Argentina in the South American Qualifiers in their current format.
Venezuela vs Brazil 1-1
*Venezuela have finally ended their losing streak against Brazil in home qualifiers (9 defeats in 9 previous matches, with a total goal difference 4-35).
*Venezuela managed to avoid defeat vs Brazil in both qualifiers of the same edition; there were only 4 such occasions in the whole history of the South American Qualifiers regards any team: Uruguay did it in 2002 (1 win and 1 draw) and 2006 (2 draws), Colombia (2 draws) and Bolivia (1 win and 1 draw) both in 2010.
*Venezuela has equaled the record of consecutive draws at home (4) in South American Qualifiers, set by Chile between June 2004 and March 2005.
In the previous home games of this campaign, Venezuela tied with Ecuador (0-0), Uruguay (0-0) and Argentina (1-1).
*For the first time, Brazil have missed 2 penalties in the same qualifying edition (Neymar against Bolivia and now Vinicius against Venezuela).
*Rafael Romo is the first goalkeeper to save 2 penalties (1 against Paraguay and now 1 against Brazil) in the same edition of the South American Qualifiers since another Venezuelan, Dani Hernández, saved 2 penalties in the same match against Colombia on 1 September 2016.
*Venezuela got a penalty against and lost an expelled player (Alexander González) in a qualifier for the third time.
Curiously, it always happened vs Brazil, also on 8 February 1981 and on 1 August 1993.
*Brazil have scored from a direct free kick in a qualifier (Raphinha) for the first time 12 October 2005 (Roberto Carlos vs Venezuela).
Between these events, Brazil scored 129 goals in a row in the Qualifiers without a single one of them being from a direct free kick.
*Telasco Segovia (Venezuela) has scored the joint-second fastest goal by a substitute player (at 41 seconds) in the history of the South American Qualifiers, along with Ezequiel Lavezzi (Argentina) against Bolivia in 2011.
Only Hugo Brizuela (Paraguay, at 26 seconds) did it faster, against Chile in 1997.
Ecuador vs Bolivia 4-0
*Ecuador have played 5 home matches without conceding a single goal for the first time in the history of the Qualifiers.
Uruguay vs Colombia 3-2
*Uruguay ended Colombia's streak of 53 consecutive games without conceding more than 2 goals. The streak began after the embarrassing 1-6 against Ecuador on 17 November 2020.
*Colombia can’t beat Uruguay away already more than 50 years doing so last time on 5 July 1973 (1-0).
At their last 14 visits to Uruguay, Colombia got 5 draws and 9 losses.
*Juan Quintero has scored Colombia's first goal from a direct free kick in the Qualifiers since James Rodriguez vs Chile on 11 September 2012.
*This match-day of South American qualifiers became the first with multiple goals from direct free kicks (Raphinha and Quintero) since the match-day 6 for the 2018 World Cup, with such goals of Arroyo (Ecuador) and Otero (Venezuela).
*An own goal by Davinson Sánchez ended a historic Uruguayan drought in the Qualifiers: 436 minutes without scoring.
*Manuel Ugarte's winning goal for Uruguay at 100 minutes and 3 seconds became the latest goal ever scored in a South American Qualifying match.
Peru vs Chile 0-0
The neighbours ended both their clashes in 2024 by 0-0 (also at Copa America) after 20 games in a row between them without a draw; they last tied before in 2004.