NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Three days after they claimed an encouraging draw against Argentina, the United States fell short\u00a01-0 against Paraguay\u00a0on\u00a0Tuesday\u00a0night at LP Field.<\/p>\n
Oscar Cardozo, who plays for\u00a0defending Portuguese Liga Champion Benfica, sucked the wind out\u00a0of the U.S. sails with an opportunistic strike in the 18th minute.<\/p>\n
The Americans, who were without starting keeper Tim Howard and centerback Oguchi Onyewu, hoped to find goals from newcomers Timothy Chandler and teenage sensation Juan Agudelo.<\/p>\n
However, the storyline was written by the South Americans, as they camped inside the U.S. end in the first fifteen minutes. Off a Paraguay corner, Cardozo took ahold of it, then beat veteran goalkeeper\u00a0Marcus Hahnemann,\u00a0for the lead.<\/p>\n
The Yanks opened the second stanza intent on leveling it. After improving in the possession department, the U.S. threatened often as the match was nearing its conclusion.<\/p>\n
In the 84th minute, Sacha Kljestan sent a tempting cross into the box that fell fortuitously to Landon Donovan, who ripped it inches outside of the near post.<\/p>\n
Minutes later, Michael Bradley sniffed the equalizer when he uncorked a shot from distance earmarked for the upper ninety. But Paraguayan keeper Justo Vilar, who went full extension, put a paw on it before it carried over the bar in the 86th minute.<\/p>\n
Seconds before the final whistle, Jermaine Jones launched the Yanks’ last chance to equalize. Once again, Vilar stood stout and kept the sheet clean to give his country the 1-0 victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oscar Cardozo’s 18th minute goal decided Tuesday’s U.S.-Paraguay tilt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/ussoccer.jpg?fit=400%2C471","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4146"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4146"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4148,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4146\/revisions\/4148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}