Paraguay

José Luis Chilavert scored 8 goals for Paraguay between 1989 and 2003. He also won the IFFHS World's Best Goalkeeper award three times.

Chilavert was the most visible part of a group that also included the defenders Carlos Gamarra, Celso Ayala and Francisco Arce. Arce was named in the South American Team of the Year seven times. Together they took Paraguay to the last 16 of the 1998 World Cup. Gamarra later captained the side that won Olympic silver in 2004, and he played in three World Cups.

Roque Santa Cruz played from 1999 to 2016 and finished as the national team's all-time top scorer with 32 goals. Denis Caniza, another defender, is the only Paraguayan to appear in four World Cups.

The national team plays as La Albirroja, and its story goes back to a friendly in 1910. The Argentine club Hércules of Corrientes invited a Paraguayan side to play, and the match finished 0–0. That was four years after the Paraguayan Football Association (APF) had been created, and no national team had been organised before it. Argentina and Brazil remain the main rivals, and the history between them goes back to the War of the Triple Alliance. The team's home is the Estadio Defensores del Chaco in Asunción, which holds about 34,451.

Paraguay have won the Copa América twice, in 1953 and 1979. In 2011 they reached the final again and lost to Uruguay. The World Cup has been harder. The best result is a quarter-final in 2010, and the team failed to qualify for the tournaments in 2014 and 2018. A semi-final has never been reached.