O zagueiro parou o atacante com uma falta.

Yes. In Brazilian Portuguese, zagueiro is a defensive soccer position. In many contexts, it is best translated as defender, and more specifically it often refers to a center-back.

So in this sentence, o zagueiro means the defender.

Atacante is a soccer term for an offensive player. Depending on context, it can be translated as:

• attacker
• forward
• striker

In this sentence, o atacante means the attacking player / the forward.

Parou is the preterite form of the verb parar, meaning to stop.

Here is the relevant conjugation:

• eu parei = I stopped
• você/ele/ela parou = you/he/she stopped

So O zagueiro parou o atacante means The defender stopped the attacker.

The preterite is used because this is a completed action in the past.

Because o is the masculine singular definite article, meaning the.

• o zagueiro = the defender
• o atacante = the attacker

Portuguese uses definite articles very naturally before nouns, often more often than English does.

Here, falta means foul in a soccer context.

So:

• uma falta = a foul

This is different from other meanings of falta, which can also mean:

• lack
• absence
• missing item
• mistake/fault in some contexts

In soccer language, though, falta very commonly means foul.

Yes, literally it means with a foul.

But in natural English, we would usually say:

• by committing a foul
• with a foul
• through a foul

So O zagueiro parou o atacante com uma falta means the defender stopped the attacker by fouling him.

Because o atacante is the direct object of parou.

The structure is:

• O zagueiro = subject
• parou = verb
• o atacante = direct object
• com uma falta = prepositional phrase explaining how

So Portuguese says:

• parar alguém = to stop someone

No extra preposition is needed.

Yes, grammatically parar simply means to stop, so on its own it can describe stopping someone in a general sense.

However, because of the vocabulary:

• zagueiro
• atacante
• falta

the sentence is very clearly about soccer.

So the natural interpretation is: the defender stopped the attacker by committing a foul.

Because falta is a feminine noun in Portuguese. Noun gender is a grammatical feature, so it takes:

• uma falta = a foul
• a falta = the foul

This is something you generally have to learn with the noun. In this case, the ending -a matches the common feminine pattern, though that is not a rule without exceptions.

Yes, it is completely normal.

The sentence follows a very common pattern:

• Subject + verb + object + extra information

So:

• O zagueiro = subject
• parou = verb
• o atacante = object
• com uma falta = how it happened

This is a very standard and natural word order in Portuguese.

Yes. Some natural alternatives would be:

• O zagueiro fez falta no atacante.
• O zagueiro parou o atacante com falta.
• O zagueiro cometeu uma falta para parar o atacante.

These all express a similar idea, though the exact phrasing may sound more or less natural depending on the commentator, region, or context.

In Brazilian Portuguese, parou is approximately pronounced like pah-ROH, with the stress on the last syllable.

A rough guide:

• pa = like pa in pasta, but shorter
• rou = something like ROH

The final ou in Brazilian Portuguese often sounds close to oh.

So parou is roughly pah-ROH.

No. Falta is a very common word with several meanings.

For example:

• Senti sua falta. = I missed you.
• Falta dinheiro. = Money is lacking.
• Ele cometeu uma falta grave. = He committed a serious fault / offense.
• In soccer: Foi falta. = It was a foul.

So in this sentence, context is what tells you that falta means foul.