Paraguay is back at the World Cup for the first time since 2010, ending nearly two decades of underwhelming results with a return that few saw coming when qualifying began. The team will go into Group D and will look to defeat the United States, carrying the memory of a side that once reached the quarterfinals in 2010 and played in four straight World Cup appearances at the turn of the century.

The scale of the recovery is hard to miss. Paraguay took only five points from its first 18 possible in qualifying, a start that left its campaign in doubt, yet it still earned automatic passage by finishing sixth in the CONMEBOL standings and did not need the playoffs. Gustavo Alfaro, Paraguay’s new boss, changed the tone. He had already shown in 2022 that he could shape a young Ecuador side into a team that was difficult to beat, and he has done the same here, building a unit whose biggest strength is a gritty back line that is hard to penetrate.

That formula is not flashy, but it has been enough. Paraguay beat Brazil and Argentina during the qualifying run that lifted it into the field, and the path was driven less by possession than by organization, discipline and the willingness to make every match uncomfortable for the opponent. Miguel Almirón, Gustavo Gomez, Julio Enciso and Diego Gómez are among the players expected to carry that approach into the tournament, while Antonio Sanabria remains the target man up front, the forward around whom the attack is built.

For Paraguay, the return is about more than one qualification cycle. The team had been absent from the World Cup since 2010, and the wait has reshaped the country’s place in the tournament conversation. Alfaro has given it a clear identity before the first ball is kicked, and that identity is blunt: defend in numbers, stay in the game and trust that a few moments can be enough. In Group D, that makes Paraguay the kind of opponent no one will want to overlook.

The question now is whether the same structure that brought Paraguay back can survive the pressure of the World Cup stage. The draw gives it a chance to test that answer quickly, and the first sign of how far this revival can go will come against the United States.