Paraguay national football team: the full squad and key players, and the 56 goals behind 772 caps
The 26 Gustavo Alfaro took to Paraguay’s first World Cup in sixteen years, position by position, with the caps, the goals and the clubs. The experience is all in defence, and the forwards have 16 goals between them.
Sep 17, 2026
Paraguay went to the 2026 World Cup for the first time in sixteen years and came home from the last 16. Gustavo Alfaro named 26 players, they knocked Germany out on penalties in the round of 32, and they lost 1-0 to France in Philadelphia on 4 July, beaten by a Kylian Mbappé penalty on 70 minutes after a VAR review. Those 26 are still the squad of record, and the caps and goals below are each player’s own tally as it stood after that France match.
Between them they hold 772 caps and 56 goals. The gap between those two numbers is the whole story of this side, and it is worth going through the squad position by position before getting to it.
Paraguay’s squad: goalkeepers
Three keepers, 43 caps between them, and the most experienced turns 39 in March. Gatito Fernández has been Cerro Porteño’s goalkeeper for most of a decade. Orlando Gill is the one at a European club.
| Player | Caps | Goals | Club |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gatito Fernández | 31 | 0 | Cerro Porteño |
| Orlando Gill | 11 | 0 | Lille |
| Gastón Olveira | 1 | 0 | Olimpia |
Paraguay’s squad: defenders
This is the experienced half of the team. Eight defenders hold 309 caps, more than any other group in the squad, and the captain, Gustavo Gómez, is the most capped player in it.
| Player | Caps | Goals | Club |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gustavo Gómez | 94 | 4 | Palmeiras |
| Júnior Alonso | 76 | 3 | Atlanta United |
| Fabián Balbuena | 49 | 2 | Grêmio |
| Omar Alderete | 40 | 3 | Sunderland |
| Juan José Cáceres | 22 | 0 | Dynamo Moscow |
| Gustavo Velázquez | 18 | 1 | Cerro Porteño |
| José Canale | 6 | 0 | Lanús |
| Alexandro Maidana | 4 | 1 | Talleres |
Paraguay’s squad: midfielders
Nine midfielders, 279 caps, and the squad’s top scorer. Miguel Almirón’s ten international goals are the most of anyone here, and he is the only player in the 26 to have reached double figures.
| Player | Caps | Goals | Club |
|---|---|---|---|
| Miguel Almirón | 80 | 10 | Atlanta United |
| Andrés Cubas | 38 | 0 | Vancouver Whitecaps |
| Kaku | 36 | 6 | Al Ain |
| Ramón Sosa | 30 | 1 | Palmeiras |
| Diego Gómez | 28 | 3 | Brighton |
| Damián Bobadilla | 23 | 1 | São Paulo |
| Matías Galarza | 19 | 4 | Inter Miami |
| Braian Ojeda | 18 | 0 | Orlando City |
| Maurício | 7 | 1 | Palmeiras |
Paraguay’s squad: forwards
And here is the problem. Six forwards, 141 caps and 16 international goals between the lot of them. Antonio Sanabria has almost half of those, and he has moved since the World Cup: he played it as a Cremonese player and is now at Internacional in Brazil.
| Player | Caps | Goals | Club |
|---|---|---|---|
| Antonio Sanabria | 50 | 7 | Internacional |
| Julio Enciso | 37 | 5 | Ipswich Town |
| Gabriel Ávalos | 27 | 2 | Independiente |
| Álex Arce | 17 | 1 | Independiente Rivadavia |
| Isidro Pitta | 6 | 0 | Red Bull Bragantino |
| Gustavo Caballero | 4 | 1 | Santos |
Fifty-six goals between twenty-six players
Line the groups up and the shape of Alfaro’s Paraguay is obvious. The eight defenders have scored 14 international goals. The six forwards have scored 16. Two more, across a group whose job it is.
The concentration is sharper still at the top. Almirón’s 10 and Sanabria’s 7 account for 17 of the squad’s 56 goals, so two players have almost a third of them. Eight of the 26 have never scored for Paraguay at all, all three goalkeepers, the defenders Juan José Cáceres and José Canale, the midfielders Andrés Cubas and Braian Ojeda, and the forward Isidro Pitta.
That is not an accident of selection. It is how Paraguay qualified and how they played at the tournament: hold the game, take what comes. They were beaten by a single penalty in the last 16 and Germany could not break them in 120 minutes.
Gustavo Gómez is six caps from a hundred
The captain has 94. He is 33, he has been at Palmeiras since 2018, and if he plays the friendlies Paraguay have lined up he will reach a hundred inside the next year. Only Miguel Almirón, on 80, and Júnior Alonso, on 76, are within twenty of him.
At the other end of the same table, Julio Enciso has 37 caps at 22. That is more than any other player in the squad under 25: Diego Gómez has 28 at 23, Matías Galarza 19 at 24, and Alexandro Maidana four at 21. Enciso has been a senior international since he was a teenager, and he has more caps than 17 of the 24 players older than him.
Where do Paraguay’s players play?
Across nine countries, and only three of the 26 at home. Brazil has the biggest share with eight, including three at Palmeiras alone: Gustavo Gómez, Ramón Sosa and Maurício. Argentina has four and the United States four, which means MLS supplies as many of this squad as the Argentine top flight does.
England has three, at Sunderland, Brighton and Ipswich Town. The rest are scattered one apiece across France, Russia, Canada and the United Arab Emirates. The three home-based players are Gatito Fernández and Gustavo Velázquez at Cerro Porteño and Gastón Olveira at Olimpia, and all three are 33 or older.
Thirteen of the 26 are 30 or older
Exactly half the squad has passed 30, and the average age is just under 29. Gatito Fernández is 38. Fabián Balbuena, Gustavo Velázquez and Gabriel Ávalos are all 35. Against that, only five players are under 25.
Whether that matters depends on what Paraguay are building towards. There is no Copa América until 2028 and no World Cup qualifying until the cycle after this one, so Alfaro has an unusually long run of friendlies in which to change the balance if he wants to.
Who is Paraguay’s coach?
Gustavo Alfaro, an Argentine who was appointed in August 2024. He had taken Ecuador to the 2022 World Cup and had a spell with Costa Rica before that, and Paraguay is the third national side he has managed. He inherited a team that had missed three World Cups in a row and got them to the last 16 of the fourth.
When do Paraguay play next?
A friendly against Colombia on 2 October 2026. Paraguay have no competitive fixtures on the calendar, which is the ordinary position for a South American side in the year after a World Cup.
Paraguay’s record at World Cups
Nine tournaments: 1930, 1950, 1958, 1986, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2026. The best run is still the 2010 quarter-final, where they lost to the eventual champions Spain, so the 2026 last 16 does not top it. They have won the Copa América twice, in 1953 and 1979.
The sixteen years between 2010 and 2026 covered three failed qualifying campaigns and a long slide down the rankings. Paraguay’s highest FIFA ranking is eighth, in March 2001, and their lowest is 103rd, in May 1995. The recovery under Alfaro started a long way from the first of those.
For the rest of the run, read how Paraguay put Germany out on penalties and how their run ended against France. Our squad guides for other national sides, including the current India squad, follow the same format.