The Maracanazo is still remembered today, not just in South America but globally as one of the biggest upsets in world football. But at the next major tournament both Brazil and World Champions Uruguay finished 2nd and 3rd respectively. In a chaotic and tumultuous six weeks in Lima, it was Paraguay who were crowned champions of the 22nd Copa América. This is the story of how the Albirroja briefly ruled the world.

In the 1940s CONMEBOL had decided that their South American Championship should be held on a rotating basis and by 1953 it was the turn of Paraguay. The mostly rural country, still reeling from a recent Civil War that killed an estimated 25,000 people and displaced almost a million, was in no position to be host to the continent’s showpiece competition. Today’s national stadium, the Defensores del Chaco, had been renovated last in 1939 and wouldn’t get an upgrade until 1996. At the time, Libertad had the largest stadium, but it could only hold 15,000 people and there was only a single hotel in the city.

With no place to play the Paraguayan FA were forced to cede hosting rights to Peru, the Andean nation who took the trophy in 1939. And so it was that in 1953, Manuel Fleitas Solich took his Albirroja northwards with hopes of improving upon their 2nd place finish in 1949. He had tried his best to put in serious preparations this time around, despite the difficulties of club and country politics in those days. Presidente Hayes, the 1952 champions, were playing an international tournament in Montevideo (the forerunner to the Club World Cup) against teams from as far afield as Vienna and Zagreb. Only their 21-year-old goalkeeper Rubén Noceda was included in the squad.

The 53-year-old coach wasn’t going to look for excuses. Instead he took what was for the time unprecedented measures to prepare for the competition. In the searing heat of the Paraguayan summer, Fleitas Solich had his players train morning and afternoon then sleep in a make-shift dorm under the stadium. The bunk beds had been brought in from a local barracks. The military-style discipline stretched to diet, with meals prepared at the same café throughout the trip. Even alcohol was banned, although rumours suggest that a blind eye was turned for the occasional tipple which helped boost morale.

In the initial stages the warm weather boot camp didn’t seem to have much effect. The Guaraní began the seven-team round robin with a routine 3-0 win over Chile, the same scoreline they had beaten Colombia by in the 1949 opener. However, it was followed by a dour 0-0 draw to basement team Ecuador which was the first time the Tri had avoided defeat against Paraguay. The drama really began in the third game against hosts Peru in a fiery match in Lima’s National Stadium.

The Sunday evening’s protagonists were an adventurous Englishman and a young man from Guarambaré on the outskirts of Asunción. Richard Maddison was described as a “very colourful character and refereed football matches all over the world” by his grandson, speaking to local press in Yorkshire after his death. Maddison was one of several British referees hired by the Argentinian Federation in an effort to improve the quality of officiating in their national competitions.

Paraguayan opinions on quality certainly differ. The claims centre around the “chubby Englishman” who allowed the game to spiral out of control as he failed to punish the home team for a series of fouls. This of course could be bias, but one indication that there was truth to the Guaraní grievances is that Paraguay’s two central defenders were seriously injured and didn’t play the rest of the tournament. Goalkeeper Adolfo Riquelme was another casualty with the young Rubén Noceda making a surprise national team debut.

In a fractious 2-2 draw, the real talking point during the game came when another substitute, Milner Ayala, clashed with Maddison. Reports in English say Ayala kicked the man in the middle, while one book on Paraguayan football history says it was a “sovereign slap” – another says he got a combination kick and punch. Whatever happened, Ayala was sent off and would later be banned for 3 years from South American competition. It was his second and final game for his country, but the midfielder would find fame in France. Not so much as a player for Racing Strasbourg, CA Paris or Red Star, but as a driver for film star Sophia Loren and her then husband Carlo Ponti.

The Peruvian press was outraged, not by Ayala’s tempestuous treatment of a match official but the fact that a fourth substitute Alejandro Arce had entered the pitch late on. The whole concept of substitutions wasn’t very commonplace in world football, and there was possibly some confusion that the three-man limit only applied to outfield players. But with the help of the local journalists, in particular one from El Comercio, a committee decided to award victory to the hosts. The Albirroja only found out they had lost a vital point after their next fixture, another 2-2 draw, this time with Uruguay.

With two matches left Fleitas Solich’s team had just four points while Brazil had six and Peru five. Even after an expected win over Bolivia in the next game, it seemed like the match between Brazil and Peru was going to decide the title. Surprisingly the 1949 champions were beaten by the Incas, and the balance of favor tipped towards the hosts going into the final round of games. They were poised to repeat their triumph of 1939 when they also won the tournament on home soil.

Paraguay’s only sliver of hope was to somehow defeat Brazil and wait for Peru to lose to a Uruguayan side with nothing to play for. The first part of that miracle looked dead in the water as early as 12 minutes into the match against the Seleçao (it would be improper to use their other nicknames Canarinho or verderamarelha because they wouldn’t adopt the famous yellow and green uniform until 1954). The defender (or back) Nilton Santos put Brazil in front and a possible repeat of the 7-0 rout surely haunted Fleitas Solich’s thoughts. But this was a different side. Only the ever-present Manuel Gavilán - a midfielder that played every Paraguay game for nine years between 1945 to 1954 - remained from that humiliation in Rio de Janeiro.

One of the new recruits was Atilio López who had made his debut in 1950, and later that year became only the second Paraguayan to score at the World Cup in a 2-2 draw against Sweden. Just after the break he netted an equalizer for the underdogs, who had mounted several attacks since going a goal down. Brazil didn’t necessarily need a victory; a draw would still force a playoff with Peru if they were to win their final match. Maybe they didn’t want to risk it, or maybe the newfound desire of their opponents had them rattled. The most formidable player at the back was the “Sargento de Hierro” Heriberto Herrera who had only made his debut as a substitute against Peru. The “halve centro”, to use the popular term of the day, would go on to form the backbone of a successful Atlético Madrid side and playing a 1958 World Cup Qualifier for his adopted country, Spain.

Paraguay began to feel the strain of constantly chasing down their opponents, and as Fleitas Solich looked to his bench he saw tired faces and a lack of options following those injuries and Ayala’s suspension from the Peru game. He must have wondered if the physio could apply some magic spray. It was at that moment he settled upon substituting the physio’s assistant and diligent waterboy. He had performed his duties admirably and without complaint throughout the four weeks, but Pablo León wasn’t just a waterboy; he was an accomplished winger with Club Guaraní.

There were five minutes left on the clock and hope was running out. Fleitas Solich made his biggest gamble to date. With one last roll of the dice, he called over the young debutant and uttered the now immortal words in Guaraní (which remains to this day the preferred language on the pitch in Paraguay), “Eike ha egana chéve ko Partido” (Get in there and win the game). León followed his orders to the letter. With a minute to go he picked up the ball on the right and drove towards goal before unleashing an unstoppable shot past Carlos Castilho. Brazil had been defeated 2-1 having taken the lead in a decisive match. The Albirroja celebrated a famous triumph but knew it was probably all in vain. The result had almost served Peru the title on a plate. A win over Uruguay and they would be outright champions.

So sure was Fleitas Solich that the Charrúas would roll over that it was rumoured he left Lima for Buenos Aires on a plane before the game took place, trying to secure a contract for after the tournament. However, he had to wing his way back to the Peruvian capital after the hosts crashed to a 3-0 defeat amid their own crisis. Coleraine native Billy Cook had won the FA Cup with Everton as a player 20 years earlier but had a turbulent spell as Peru’s head coach. Effectively sacked before the game against Brazil and replaced by Argentinian assistant Ángel Fernández Roca, he had been brought back into the training camp by the Federation’s President ahead of the Uruguay match. Fernández Roca threatened to resign, the federation back-pedaled, and Cook returned to Ireland. With all the drama behind the scenes it was maybe no surprise that the 1950 World Champions were able to romp to a comfortable win.

A playoff match was hastily arranged between Paraguay and Brazil to decide the winner. The tournament that had started in February would now end in April, on Ash Wednesday no less, as the teams reconvened in the Estadio Nacional. In what was very much a game of two halves, the Albirroja came flying out of the traps and were 2-0 up within 17 minutes. Atilio López scored what proved to be his final goal for Paraguay before the ubiquitous Gavilán added the second. By halftime it was 3-0, the team captain Rubén Fernández also scoring in what was his last international match. Fernández’s performance earned him a move to Boca Juniors where he helped them end a long title-drought in 1954 but injury cut his footballing career short. Instead of knocking teeth out as a bruising centre half he spent much of his later life fixing them as a dentist. He helped former international rivals, working within the Argentinian Football Association Medical Department.

After the break Brazil came out with renewed purpose, and Zezé Moreira replaced Pinga for Ipojucan. Although the former had caused problems in a 1950 friendly, scoring twice, it was the 6ft 3in physicality of the substitute that started to grind down the Paraguayan resolve. His teammate Baltazar profited, the Cabeça de Ouro (Golden Head) nodded in a nine-minute brace early in final period. For the final twenty-five minutes Manuel Fleitas Solich’s well-drilled side had to draw on every last ounce of effort they had to repel the defending South American champions.

Only two local journalists had made the journey and only one, Ulises Jordan, was able to transmit the game live via radio back to eager listeners in Asunción’s Municipal Theatre. In the dying stages he was unable to offer commentary in any detail such was the anxiety and expectation, he simply counted down the minutes left in the contest while holding back tears. “Ten left, five left, three left, two left, one left….CAMPEÓÓÓÓN” is how Paraguayan writer Bernardo Neri Farina recalls the broadcast.

It was remarkable, incredible, unthinkable and unrepeatable. The first and only time Paraguay has beaten Brazil in consecutive games. From third place in 1946, to consecutive vice-championships in 1947 and 1949, now they were champions of South America. Considering that Paraguay finished directly above the top two teams at the last World Cup and ended the tournament unbeaten on the pitch, it is fair to say the Albirroja briefly ruled the world.

Manuel Fleitas Solich had vanquished his demons from 1949 and would get his dream job not in Buenos Aires but Rio de Janeiro. The “Brujo” coached Flamengo to three straight Carioca championships using the 4-2-4 formation that Brazil would use to win their first World Cup a few years afterwards. After a successful stint in Spain with Real Madrid he returned to home, not his native Paraguay but his flat on Copacabana Beach where he lived until his death in 1984.

As for Pablo León, the waterboy of Lima, not much is written about him outside of 1953. He never played for the national team again, not even in the 1954 World Cup Qualifiers where Brazil did come out on top. Many athletes train and strive for a lifetime to make their mark. León needed just five minutes to engrave his name in Paraguayan footballing folklore.