Colombia 1 - Venezuela 0; Argentina, Paraguay win big

Argentina started off match day three of South American qualifying with a shutout victory at home to Bolivia, 3-0. Juan Riquelme netted two more scores, including one on a free kick, and pushed his tournament total to four, leading CONMEBOL in scoring. Bolivia did its best to slow Argentina's attack by any means, committing nineteen fouls to Argentina's eight.

Colombia keeper Agustín Julio spoke before the match against Venezuela. "Matches against Venezuela have always got that special derby flavour. Last time around they beat us on our own patch, but we're hoping to make home advantage count and start writing our own little piece of history."

Colombia dominated their neighbors Venezuela more than the final score line would indicate. The hosts outshot the visitors fifteen to four. Venezuela played a defensive game, attempting to come away with a scoreless draw. Up until the final five minutes of the game, the strategy had worked. Unfortunately for Venezuela, a well-placed free kick was the only goal of the game and sent the crowd in Bogotá into euphoria. Venezuela committed eleven fouls and were only able to draw four. Colombia have yet to surrender a goal in the tournament. Acoording to Venezuelan coach Richard Páez, "It was another tight game as always but we didn't count on the free kick."

In Paraguay, the host country destroyed Ecuador, a side that had qualified for the previous two World Cup finals. Ecuador are stuck in neutral and have lost all three of their qualifiers so far by a combined score of 11-1. Paraguay took a nice, comfortable 2-0 lead into the break and extended it to 3-0 before Ecuador scored its first goal of the tournament. The final score was 5-1 to the home side. This was the first match out of thirteen in South American qualfying in which both sides were able to score. Ecuador's coach, Luis Suárez, resigned after the match.

Goal scorers:
Argentina: Agüero 41; Riquelme 57, 74

Colombia: Bustos 82

Paraguay: Váldez 8; Riveros 26, 87; Santa Cruz 50; Ayala 82

Ecuador: Kaviedes 79