Paraguay Broke Germany, the World Cup’s Surest Shootout Team

World Cup 2026

The Paraguay Germany shootout did not just produce an upset. It ended the single most reliable record in penalty-kick history, and the two teams’ own numbers explain why it was so improbable.

Strip away the noise and one fact carries this whole story. Germany had never lost a penalty shootout at a World Cup, in any year, in any round.

On Monday in Foxborough, Massachusetts, Paraguay ended that record on its very first attempt against it. The four-time champions are out, beaten four to three from the spot after a tense one-all draw that our pre-match preview had cast as the steepest climb of the round.

The streak that should have held

German efficiency from twelve yards is not a cliche. It is a measured run that stretched back almost half a century before this match.

Per the Opta analysts who track these things, Germany had won six straight shootouts at major tournaments. The last time they lost one was the 1976 European final, when Czechoslovakia beat them after Antonín Panenka’s famous chipped winner.

At the World Cup specifically the record was spotless across four shootouts and four wins, spanning the tournaments of the eighties, the nineties and two thousand six, as ESPN’s match report laid out, with Monday the fifth and the first they lost.

That is why the bookmakers and the neutrals leaned one way. You do not, by habit, bet against Germany once a game reaches penalties.

A side that could not score, until it had to

Now turn the telescope around and look at Paraguay’s own knockout history. It reads like the least likely team to break such a record.

Before Monday, Paraguay had played five World Cup knockout matches and failed to score a single goal in any of them. They had advanced exactly once, and that too came on penalties, against Japan in 2010.

So the frame is stark. A team that had never found the net when the tournament turned serious just eliminated the surest shootout side the World Cup has ever produced.

The drought even ended within the same match. Julio Enciso’s header in the forty-second minute was Paraguay’s first-ever goal in a World Cup knockout game, in their sixth such outing.

The what-if at the heart of it

Records this old rarely fall cleanly, and this one turned on a single overturned decision. Deep in extra time, with the score level, Jonathan Tah rose to head Germany in front.

The goal was ruled out after a video review, the officials judging that a German player had impeded Paraguay’s goalkeeper, Orlando Gill. Had it stood, there would have been no shootout and no broken record.

Instead the game went to the spot, and the same Tah skied his sudden-death penalty over the bar. The man denied a goal by the narrowest margin then handed Paraguay their opening.

How the Paraguay Germany shootout itself ran

The sequence was a slow unravelling rather than a sudden collapse. Gill, a goalkeeper of six feet six whose heroics against Türkiye had already kept Paraguay alive in the group, saved the opening kick from Kai Havertz and then stopped Nick Woltemade too.

Paraguay could not press the advantage, with Antonio Sanabria firing wide and the veteran Manuel Neuer keeping Germany alive by denying Fabián Balbuena. That left the score level at three each going into sudden death.

Then came Tah’s miss, and José Canale stepped up to power past Neuer for the win. For a foreign reader the takeaway is simple: the kings of the shootout were beaten at the one thing they never lost.

For Germany it is a third straight World Cup without reaching the last sixteen, an alarming run for a four-time winner. For Paraguay, back at this stage for the first time since 2010, it is the upset of the tournament so far and a place in the round of sixteen, where the winner of France against Sweden awaits.

Frequently Asked Questions

What made the Paraguay Germany shootout historic?

It was the first time Germany had ever lost a penalty shootout at a World Cup, having won their previous four. It also ended a run of six straight major-tournament shootout wins stretching back to their loss in the 1976 European final.

Why was Paraguay an unlikely team to break the record?

Paraguay had failed to score in all five of their previous World Cup knockout matches and had advanced only once before, also on penalties, against Japan in 2010. Julio Enciso’s header in this match was the country’s first goal in a World Cup knockout game.

What was the disallowed Germany goal?

In extra time Jonathan Tah headed the ball in from a corner, but the goal was overturned by a video review for a foul on Paraguay’s goalkeeper. Tah then missed his penalty in the shootout, skying it over the bar.

Who do Paraguay play next?

Paraguay advance to the round of sixteen, where they will face the winner of the match between France and Sweden. It is their best World Cup run since reaching the quarter-finals in 2010.

Connected Coverage links to related Rio Times World Cup reporting.