Paraguay 0-0 Australia: FIFA World Cup Match Report

Goalless at the interval and goalless at the finish, Paraguay 0-0 Australia was the only scoreless match in Group D and the one that left both of these sides level on points behind the group winners.

Neither team could afford to lose. Paraguay had been beaten 4-1 by the United States before recovering with a 1-0 win over Turkey; Australia had beaten Turkey 2-0 and then lost 2-0 to the United States. A point took each of them to four, and a point is what they settled for in a match whose caution was evident from the goalless first half onwards.

It fits the group's pattern more than it breaks it. Paraguay scored two goals in three matches and Australia scored two in three, and neither reached a third at any point in the tournament. Between them they managed four goals in six games. This was the fixture where the two lowest-scoring sides in Group D met each other, and a 0-0 was the natural product. Turkey's 3-2 win over the United States on the same day made the wider arithmetic tighter than the safety of the point on offer here would have suggested.

It left Paraguay and Australia both on four points behind the United States, who finished on six despite losing that final match to Turkey. Turkey ended on three, beaten by both of the sides in this fixture and able to take points only off the group winners.

The draw was the safe outcome for both teams and the ambitious one for neither. A win for either would have meant second place outright with no reliance on tie-breakers or on results elsewhere. Instead the two of them finished level on points, separated by the finer margins, in a group where the second qualifying place was decided by figures neither had done much to build. Two goals scored in three matches leaves very little room for error.

Our pre-match call was Double Chance 1X (Paraguay or Draw) at 1.42, and the draw half of it delivered.

The read was that Paraguay, having just beaten Turkey 1-0, would not lose to an Australia side that had been shut out by the United States in the previous round. That is a modest claim, and modest claims are what a 1.42 double chance is priced for. The 0-0 confirms the underlying logic: neither of these teams was going to score freely, and in a low-scoring fixture the draw takes up a substantial share of the book. Backing Paraguay outright at a bigger price would have lost. Taking the insurance was the correct call for a final-round group match where a point suited both sides. Verdict: won