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"Francisco Arce, new coach of the Paraguayan national
football team, welcome Chiqui," the team announced on its
official Twitter account.
Arce replaces Argentine Ramon Diaz, who resigned after
Paraguay's group stage elimination at the Copa America
Centenario in the United States in June.
The former Paraguay right back, who played at the 1998 and 2002
World Cups, will be looking to see the team through to the 2018
finals in Russia.
Paraguay, who reached four successive World Cups between 1998
and 2010 where they progressed to the quarter-finals for the
first time, are a lowly seventh in the South American qualifying
group after six matches.
They picked up nine points under Diaz and are four points behind
leading pair Uruguay and Ecuador before their next matches at
home to Chile and away to Uruguay in the first week of
September.
The top four teams after 18 matches qualify for the finals while
the fifth goes into an intercontinental playoff for one more
berth.
"I accept that our first time was not good," Arce told a local
radio station about his first spell in charge. "We have acquired
more solidity in the five years that have passed."
Arce, who had barely hung up his boots when he took the job in
2011, has since being sacked a year later won the Paraguayan
league title with Cerro Porteno in 2013 and Olimpia in 2015.
As a player Arce, nicknamed "Chiqui" (little one) for his slight
build, won the South American Copa Libertadores with Brazilian
sides Gremio in 1995 and Palmeiras in 1999 having won three
Paraguayan league crowns with his first club Cerro Porteno.
(Writing by Rex Gowar; editing by Amlan Chakraborty)
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