Orlando Gill stretches his arms closer to the corner flag and his teammates run toward him. He’s six-foot-six and he’s bulked himself up over the past two hours, but right now, in the crowd, he looks like a man trying to hold onto a roof.
Two years ago, before any of this happened, his wife posted something online that almost no one read. “When Loutie was born, we didn’t have anything. Orlando sold his old club clothes…” He sat there unconcerned until his defense against Turkey sent people looking for who he was, and the post came back like this, once again the man in it mattered.
Yet he continued to play. Monday night at Boston Stadium in Foxboro, the sun down and the floodlights on, his wife once described selling her own clothes to save two penalties and end Germany’s World Cup.
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Manuel Neuer was a story of about four minutes. He kept the shootout alive by stretching down his right when Germany needed it exactly, knowing it was his last World Cup. Jonathan Tah, who had already scored a fine header in added time by VAR, stepped up at the end and twice could have made himself the hero of the night. He kicked the ball into the stands behind the goal. Jose Canale didn’t miss. Paraguay had beaten Germany in the World Cup and the victory belonged to Gill before anyone else.
It was Gill who saved Kai Havertz’s early penalty, low to his left, no fumble. Kimmich, Gómez, Musiala and Galarza all converted around him, the shootout was tight and even, until Gil rose again to deny Nick Voltemed, surviving goalkeepers spend their careers chasing and rarely getting more than once. Two of the four German kicks were saved and the door opened.
Antonio Sanabria stepped up for Paraguay and could have closed it out. He reduced his efforts. Amiri scored to keep Germany alive and it was Neuer’s turn to be the story again when Fabian Balbuena came forward for Paraguay, predicting it perfectly and pushing the ball away. Tah’s miss was yet to come.
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Paraguay hadn’t asked for the ball much all night. Twenty-one percent of possession, by count, most of it accumulated in innocuous pockets that make the stat sheet look generous. They sat deep, soaking up wave after wave of sterile German pressure, waiting for a moment that the game would always give someone.
Paraguay goalkeeper Orlando Gil (12) celebrates as Manuel Neuer (1) gets into position, after Germany’s Nick Woltmead saves a shot in the shootout. (AP Photo/Steven Sene)
He countered in the 42nd minute. A corner, scrambled and unmarked, Neuer punching clear when he should have caught, Almiron alive to a loose ball, a pass inside to Matias Galarza and then Julio Enciso, a forward poised for a long-range strike, instead reached the near post to bury a cross with a header that was nothing short of delicate. Germany spent the first half passing the ball into the corners to no avail. Paraguay needed a moment of carelessness and Neuer gave it to them.
In the 54th minute, Havertz replied, the way he tends in competitions is important. In big games, Havertz channels his inner Jurgen Klinsmann, the striker with a sniper’s eye. He is, by his own admission, not a natural header of the ball and yet his last five World Cup appearances have found a way to disagree with him. Florian Wirtz’s cross was spot on. Instead of chasing him, Havertz let him come and turned behind Gill, who couldn’t do anything about it.
It was the last clean thing either side did in an hour.
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Jamal Musia was introduced to bring more creativity and break down a stubborn Paraguay rearguard. It was not found. Extra time didn’t come close to winning the match, and in the 119th minute Tah headed in a Nathaniel Brown corner, only to have the goal disallowed, as Waldemar Anton fouled Gill in the build-up. The monitor was stuck in a technical area so narrow that the referee had to ask both benches to physically move so he could reach it. Julian Nagelsmann needed his own personnel to keep him on his side of the touchline.
It was a night, somewhere less than classic, with two headers the only goals from two hours of open football and a shootout needed to find a winner.
Also read | Paraguay beat Germany in a penalty shootout after a disallowed goal
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Gill saved twice from four German kicks. He stretches his arms now with a corner flag, a six-foot-six man who once sold his own clothes to support his family, finally allowed to lay it down for one night.
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Germany are out, the first major casualty of the tournament, but they lost their aura long ago. The recent exodus reflects the rot in their once clockwork system. Paraguay have reached the last sixteen thanks to a goalkeeper no one outside of Asuncion could have named a month ago, and an old post by the wife has finally found the right reader.