They may have a 1,290km border with Brazil, but in soccer terms modest Paraguay have little in common with their all-conquering neighbors.
However, they hope that they can bamboozle their rivals here by ensuring that something, perhaps everything, gets lost in translation as they gee each other up or bark instructions during matches.
England skipper David Beckham would, after three years playing in Spain, expect to decode his opponents' on-pitch instructions to each other -- but the outsiders have a subtle plan which they hope will help them pull off a shock today in Frankfurt.
Once they kick off, the Paraguayans are wont to speak, not in Spanish but the native tongue of Guarani.
So if Becks and company want the lowdown on what their opponents are tactically about they will need to be aware that eike is an instruction to "go forward" while ko'anga means "now."
Ruiz, a Uruguayan, is fortunately well versed in such cultural peculiarities, which is just as well as otherwise there might be some difficulty in transmissions of information from pitch to bench during his side's games.
Conversely, it was all double Dutch to Cesare Maldini, the veteran Italian coach who presided over a run to the second round in 2002 before Germany stopped the South Americans in their tracks.
Maldini never got to grips with the language side after replacing Sergio Makarian, who had led the squad through the qualifiers going into that tournament.
Former skipper and eccentric goalkeeper Jose Luis Chilavert opined it was only a player decision to ignore Maldini in the win over Slovenia which brought passage to the last 16.
"I don't speak Guarani but I do understand the players," Ruiz said.
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