Brazil and Marquinhos suffered a shock defeat to Paraguay to leave their Olympic qualification dreams in jeopardy, but they’re not out of it yet.

Arsenal’s Marquinhos is away with the Brazil u23s for the CONMEBOL Pre-Olympic Tournament at the moment, with the team breezing through the first stage so easily that they’d topped the group with a game to go.

But Brazil now face a second group stage composed of the best teams from the opening group stage, and they got off to a poor start on Monday against Paraguay.

Marquinhos began the game on the bench, and he could only watch on as Brazil’s Endrick missed a first-half penalty before Fabrizio Peralta gave Paraguay the lead.

The Arsenal winger came on with 20 minutes to go, but he couldn’t turn the game around, and Brazil lost 1-0.

The top-two teams from the second group stage will qualify for the Olympics, so Brazil aren’t out of it yet.

Marquinhos’ side were actually handed a pretty big boost later in the day, as Argentina played Venezuela in the other game.

The match went about as perfectly as Brazil could have hoped, with the two teams drawing 2-2 and three red cards being shown – two to Argentina and one to Venezuela.

Brighton’s Valentin Barco was among those sent off who will now be unavailable to face Brazil through suspension.

Barco threw the ball at an opponent’s face to receive his red card, with Bryant Ortega also getting a red for doing the same back to Barco. Argentina’s Gonzalo Lujan was later sent off for throwing an arm into an opponent’s face.

But there’s no further room for error for Brazil. Anything but two wins in their final two games could see them eliminated, depending on other results.

If Marquinhos wants to play at the Olympics this summer, he’ll need to help his team to a win over Venezuela on Thursday, February 8th at 23:00 GMT, before also beating Argentina on Saturday, February 10th at 23:00 GMT.