El tercer partido masculino del Pan Am Challenge 2011 fue entre Paraguay y Uruguay. Ambos equipos femeninos de Uruguay y Paraguay estuvieron en las tribunas alentando durante todo el partido. El partido comenzó con ambos equipos peleando intensamente por la posesión. Pero fue Uruguay quien ganó el primer corner corto del partido. Mauro PERI con un contundente golpe puso el 1-0  para Uruguay. Alrededor de cinco minutos después, el uruguayo Matías PEREIRO puso el partido 2- 0. Paraguay no se dio por vencido y continuó penetrando su círculo de ataque. Pero entonces fue el uruguayo Mateo PEREIRO quien anotó con un tiro desde el lado izquierdo del círculo aumentando la diferencia a 3-0. Más tarde Sebastian CASTILLO ponía el 4-0 a favor de Uruguay. La defensa de Paraguay no podía con el ataque constante de Uruguay y así los uruguayos lograron sacar de su posición a dos defensores ( y al portero paraguayo Paolo BELLO CANETE) para anotar dos goles rápidos antes de finalizar el primer tiempo.

A pesar de estar 6 goles abajo, Paraguay salió con fuerza al segundo tiempo. Pasaron solo diez minutos para que el uruguayo Federico INGLESIAS golpeara dos veces y aumentara la diferencia a ocho goles.. Paraguay ganó un  número de corners cortos bien entrado el segundo tiempo, pero no logró anotar. Ya hacia el final Maximiliano TIXE con un hermoso drag flick, luego de un corner corto marcó el noveno gol.  Uruguay persistió hasta el final y fue el Capitán  Patricio DRAPER quien concretó dejando como resultado final el 10-0 sobre Paraguay.

Paraguay’s Coach Martha GEHRMANN

On the match…

I thought it was a bad match. Uruguay was the better team today. We have a lot to improve on. We will meet. And with each game hopefully we will get a little better and turnaround and produce results.

Paraguay’s Pablo ZAMBRINI VERA

On the match…

I agree, it was a bad match. But we played from goal to goal and the whole game. Uruguay had more power, better movement on the pitch, were smarter and have more resources than us.

On improving during the rest of the tournament…

We need to play more hockey and move the ball better and continue to become accustomed to the turf and that will help us open up space on the field.

On the hockey playing conditions in Paraguay…

In Paraguay, we play 7 versus 7 and our pitch is one-quarter the size of this pitch. It is also sand-based. You cannot compare hockey played in these conditions to hockey played here. So here we are learning and getting used to playing “true” hockey.

Uruguay’s Coach Marcelo TABORDA

On the match…

In our first match, we were a little off. Today, our nerves were much less and we were more comfortable playing our game. We played together as a team today rather than individuals like last game. We attacked collectively and had more control. However, we still made little errors in our defensive end that Paraguay capitalized off of and earned penalty corners from. These are things that we need to correct and improve on for the future.

On if he tried to change anything at half-time…

Having an early lead, I could make small changes without too many risks. I wanted to rotate everyone so that everyone could play. We are working incrementally to improve for the final.

Uruguay’s Patricio DRAPER

On the match…

We had adopted better to the pitch. We are always improving and we put into the match what we had practiced. We need to correct the short corners we give up on the defensive end.

On the difference between this match and Uruguay’s first match against Brazil…

Nerves; a new pitch; we also corrected small mistakes we made in that game and played more together. It was really great to see at least five different players score goals today. We are always improving.