Vinícius Junior gave Brazil a 4-1 victory over Paraguay on Friday, setting them poised to advance from Copa America Group D. He scored two goals in the first half of the match.

In the first half, Savinho of Brazil added another goal, and in the second, Lucas Paqueta scored from a penalty kick. It was Omar Alderete who scored the goal for Paraguay.

There were a lot of nervous moments as the five yellow cards and one red card were distributed. Paraguay was reduced to one player down for the duration of the match in the 81st minute due to a red card. Yellow cards were given to Brazil’s Wendell, Junior, and Paqueta, as well as Paraguay’s Fabian Balbuena and Hernesto Caballero.

In their first game on Tuesday, the Seleção Canarinho drew scorelessly despite outshooting their opponent 18-2. Their victory was a remarkable reversal of fortune.

Following Colombia’s 3-0 victory over Costa Rica earlier on Friday, Brazil now trails the group leader by two points. Brazil will secure one of the two spots in the group’s knockout stage if they win or draw against Colombia on Tuesday. Furthermore, Brazil is ahead of Costa Rica by a margin of six goals, so a loss is unlikely to deter the nine-time Copa America champions.

Brazil has struggled against Paraguay in Copa America matches, drawing their last five meetings. When Paraguay competed against Brazil in this competition from 1963 to 1983, that tied for the second-longest winning streak.

But Brazil had won their last meeting, defeating Paraguay 4-0 in World Cup qualifying two years earlier, thus the outcome of this match was almost obvious as two late goals split the score in an intensely fought first half.

Savinho gave Brazil a 2-0 lead in the 43rd minute, just after teammate Bruno Guimaraes had hit the crossbar.

After three minutes or more of play, Wendell and Balbuena were given yellow cards by Chilean referee Piero Maza Gomez, which sparked a confrontation between the two teams. Then, five minutes into the extra period, Junior struck the decisive blow.

Despite having numerous opportunities, Paraguay even outshot Brazil 8-5 with 4-3 on goal. Thirteen minutes into the match, Damián Bobodilla was about to score when Brazil’s Alisson Becker made an amazing save by diving to his right.

But early in the second half, Alderete responded to make it 3-1.

Then, after missing a penalty kick in the first half, Paqueta gave Brazil a three-goal lead again 17 minutes later.

Brazil’s coach Dorival Júnior made a bold and controversial choice by not starting Raphinha. Legendary player for the national team Neymar saw the move from the stands and said it was clearly successful.

As a late substitute for Savinho, Raphinha joined the game in the 72nd minute.