Peru to play Paraguay in House of Kaku

If the New York Red Bulls get the hot start to the 2019 season they will be hoping for, their first-teamers can expect to have a busy March, balancing CONCACAF Champions League with the start of the MLS schedule.

The FIFA-mandated window for international games at the end of March might provide a breather for some players in RBNY’s squad, though MLS does not always pause for international breaks. But for some Red Bulls, an international window simply brings a different set of teammates and opponents. That will likely be the case for Alejandro “Kaku” Romero Gamarra, the RBNY playmaker who switched his international allegiance from Argentina (the country of his birth) to Paraguay (where his parents are from) in 2018. Kaku has two caps for Paraguay to date, and will doubtless hope to add a few more to that tally in 2019.

He might not need to travel very far to do so in March: Paraguay will be coming to Red Bull Arena to play Peru on March 22. The team will play Mexico in California four days later.

The games should prove nostalgic for Paraguay head coach Juan Carlos Osorio: he coached RBNY in 2008 and 2009, before Red Bull Arena opened, and he was Mexico’s head coach for the business end of the last World Cup cycle.