One Liverpool player was largely absolved of any blame for his country’s latest setback during a wretched 2024 for them.
Brazil went down to their fourth defeat in six matches in the CONMEBOL section of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers overnight, losing 1-0 to Paraguay to leave them fifth in the table and barely clinging onto an automatic passage to the finals.
Alisson Becker was unable to prevent his side from another loss, but the usually unforgiving Brazilian media weren’t pointing any fingers at him over the result in Asuncion.
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Cahê Mota wrote in Globo Esporte: “He was practically a spectator during the match. Paraguay only had two shots on target: one was a convincing save and the other, which led to a goal, he was not at fault following a beautiful trivela by Diego Gomez.”
Zero Hora opined: “Alisson was not to blame for the goal. He had little involvement during the game”, while No Ataque shared this verdict on the Liverpool goalkeeper: “He was almost not bothered by Paraguay. The goal, which went in his direction, was indefensible.”
The statistics from the Paraguay-Brazil game would suggest that it was by and large an even contest, with the visitors shading the shot count (9 v 7) and the number of shots on target (3 v 2), although they contrived to lose despite having 71% possession (Sofascore).
Alisson was recorded as making one save and, as we can see from the observations among Brazilian media, wasn’t deemed at fault for Gomez’s winning goal.
Not counting penalty shootouts, that was actually his first concession in six competitive matches for club and country since the Selecao drew 1-1 against Colombia in the Copa America group stage in early July, so the 31-year-old had been on an impressive run of clean sheets prior to last night.
He’s had a post-shot xG of 1.7 on his goal in the early weeks of Liverpool’s season (FBref) but has yet to be beaten for us since the campaign started, with the numbers showing that he’s already overperforming significantly on the industry standard.
Hopefully Alisson won’t taste defeat any time over the next month, with Arne Slot inevitably leaning heavily on his first-choice goalkeeper to maintain the fine start to the season that he and the Reds have enjoyed.
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