We have a clue from Paraguay\u2019s starting XI. Probably more accurately, from their starting formation. Manager Gustavo Alfaro has shifted from a back four to a back five. That can suggest two things: that they will park the bus and force the Socceroos to have the ball, and make it as difficult as possible for them to score; or they will use their wing-backs to push high, in which case they may leave space in behind for Australia to exploit.<\/p>\n
I suppose there\u2019s a third option, too: they do both and play on the counter, which is sort of Australia\u2019s way of doing things as well. And that, friends, makes this a fascinating tactical battle. It could a bit bus parky. It could also be wide open.<\/p>\n
Volpato and Metcalfe are both comfortable on the ball, so that works in the Socceroos\u2019 favour if they have the share of possession and have to pick through a compact defence. And Irankunda is the man to get in behind when it comes to that.<\/p>\n
Anyway, Alfaro has made three changes, bringing left-back Alexandro Maidana into his starting line-up, as well as centre-back Gustavo Velazquez and forward Gabriel Avalos.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We have a clue from Paraguay\u2019s starting XI. Probably more accurately, from their starting formation. Manager Gustavo Alfaro…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":760443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-760539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=760539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/760443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}