Born in São Paulo in 2001, striker Maurício took advantage of his Paraguayan ancestry, became naturalized in February this year and has already been called up to represent the country in the World Cup.
Four months later, he was one of the players responsible for the country’s qualification to the round of 16, beating favorites Germany on penalties.
After the confrontation, in which he entered the second half, he broke down in tears alongside his teammates.
“I’m very emotional. I’ve cried a lot on the field. It’s incredible what we’ve been doing, everything we’ve been fighting for,” he said, still on the pitch, to CazéTV.
The player said that the Paraguayan group already knew how Germany played and had an idea of how the match would unfold.
“We have a very strong identity of fighting, fighting, being fierce. In every ball, dedicating ourselves to the maximum to defend ourselves. That’s what we did, in 120 minutes of pure fight, pure challenge. And the penalties, which is [sic] crazy,” he said.
Regarding the penalty shootout, Maurício praised both German goalkeeper Neuer and Gill, who saved two penalties for Paraguay.
“Since the game I already knew where I was going to hit, I was already directed. Of course I spent the whole time praying, thinking about what I could do, and I was very happy. I think we deserved it a lot”, concluded the Palmeiras player.
Clubmate in Brazil, defender Gustavo Gómez also expressed his pride in his teammates and highlighted that he had previously said that the group deserved to advance to the stage, despite the criticism it had been receiving in the country.
“The truth is that, with the whole situation, everything that was said, regardless of anything, the group’s message is unity. The group has incredible strength to face any situation. It was a match in which we had to be Paraguay more than ever. To beat Germany, we had to sweat blood. We knew we were going to sell the defeat very dearly”, stated the team captain.
Gómez dedicated the triumph to the Paraguayan people, “because the team is bringing tremendous happiness to the country.”
“What we are doing in each match is being monitored, and each one of this group is working to improve and sowing so that in the future we will have a solid team in every way. We came out stronger. That is the most important thing.”
Goalkeeper Gill said it was a privilege to defeat a world champion – Alemamha has already won the World Cup four times –, especially in the way it was, with all the pressure imposed by the Europeans.
“It’s an immense emotion. It was a very complicated match, they attacked from all sides. We opened the scoring and didn’t count on a draw, but we managed to win on penalties”, said number 12, explaining that he analyzed the way of taking penalties from all the Germans.
“I think that was also fundamental for the classification.”
