France survive Paraguay's 'disgraceful' and 'embarrassing' dark arts

'Disgusting' Paraguay went 'way too far' against France

"Paraguay's players were an absolute disgrace," former England goalkeeper Joe Hart told BBC One. "If they were on my team, I'd be dragging them off the pitch."

After dismantling all before them at this World Cup, France had to find a new way to win to keep alive their dream of regaining the trophy they last lifted in 2018. Their 1-0 victory over Paraguay was hard earned.

Paraguay had won over neutrals by causing a major shock in the last 32, knocking out Germany on penalties.

But, in a bad-tempered match in the punishing Philadelphia heat, they showed their ugly side.

Andres Cubas escaped a booking after clattering into Adrien Rabiot. Juan Jose Caceres kicked out at Kylian Mbappe, and that went unpunished too.

Astonishingly, while Les Bleus players Manu Kone, Bradley Barcola and Michael Olise were all cautioned, not one Paraguay player was booked. Not even when Gabriel Avalos dropped the elbow into the stomach of Dayot Upamecano when Paraguay were chasing the game.

"It was embarrassing to see," former England defender Micah Richards told BBC One.

"Paraguay are better than that. Defensively they were so good and they didn't need to get into these antics."

France's victory secured a quarter-final date with Morocco at Boston Stadium on Thursday (21:00 BST kick-off).

The decisive moment came with 20 minutes left when Diego Gomez had stuck out his leg to bring down Desire Doue. Referee Ilgiz Tantashev - whose overall performance was widely criticised for being too weak - reviewed the incident on the pitchside monitor, and awarded a penalty.

Even then, Paraguay's players crowded the Uzbek official in an attempt to delay the penalty kick, while Gustavo Velazquez tried to scuff the penalty spot before Mbappe scored his seventh goal of the tournament to go level with Lionel Messi in the race for the Golden Boot.

"There were some insults from the other bench we could have done without," said France boss Didier Deschamps in his news conference afterwards.

Even after the full-time whistle, there was a scuffle as Velazquez attempted to confront France players.

"Paraguay tried to wind up the France players, little shoves and nudges but not enough to get a yellow card," former Scotland winger Pat Nevin told BBC Radio 5 Live.

"Every single dark art you can use."

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What were Paraguay's 'dirty tricks'?

Gustavo Velazquez kicked the penalty spot to try to scuff it up before Kylian Mbappe's penalty

Dayot Upamecano received an elbow in the ribs

Matias Galarza put his hand in Jules Kounde's face

Galarza went down when Michael Olise grabbed his shirt to get him booked

Andres Cubas went through Adrien Rabiot with a poor tackle

France overcome Paraguay to reach quarter-final

'They thought we'd show up in tuxedos'

Mbappe is now one behind Messi in the all-time list of World Cup goalscorers after taking his tally to 19 in 19 tournament games.

Incredibly, since 2018, Mbappe has scored more goals in the knockout stages of the World Cup (11) than Brazil (10), England (10), Portugal (9) and Spain (4).

It looked like being a frustrating game for France and their captain as they failed to register an attempt on target in the first half.

The extreme heat had an impact, with this game going down as one of the hottest World Cup matches of all-time. The temperature at kick-off was recorded on the official page for the National Weather Service at 38.3C.

The record for a World Cup game stands at 43C, when the Republic of Ireland played Mexico in Florida in 1994.

Yet France still found a way to overcome the heat - and Paraguay's rough tactics.

"We know how to play ugly football," Mabppe said afterwards.

"They [Paraguay] thought we'd show up in tuxedos, but we were ready. Even at that game, we were better than them.

"That's their style of football - there's no right or wrong way to play the game. They tried to beat us that way, but we won."

Deschamps, who is now the first coach to secure 10 World Cup knockout victories, revealed he had instructed his players to shield Mbappe in the closing stages as Paraguay searched for a way back into the game.

"I asked the two biggest lads to go and stand around Kylian at the end because they were going to chop him down," Deschamps added.

"It wasn't easy. They use every trick in the book. It's not the kind of football that will bring people to the stadium, but they defended well. It is always difficult against these South American teams."

Mbappe was targeted from the start but kept his cool and reacted to Paraguay's provocation by laughing off their tactics on the pitch.

"I love how Mbappe has behaved in this game," added Hart.

"The Paraguay players have come for him from minute one. When he was laughing at the players, he is allowed to be arrogant.

"I would never want to play football that way. The referee didn't help in any circumstances. The fact that not one Paraguayan was booked inside the 90 minutes is astonishing."

Thomas Hitzlsperger, the former Germany midfielder, told BBC One that he had "no respect" for Paraguay over the way they behaved.

"If you are from Paraguay, you probably like the team - they are like warriors," he added.

"If you are French or neutral, you can have no respect for them any more. This is not just disgraceful, this is even worse."

'France can play beautiful football - and go to war'

France's Manchester City forward Rayan Cherki said that the Paraguay game showed the team can overcome provocation to win games.

"We knew it was going to be a fiercely contested match," he added.

"But it was important to us to play a game like this during the World Cup - to remind everyone that the French team can play beautiful football, but can also go to war."

William Saliba said Les Bleus were ready for Paraguay after studying videos of their previous games.

"They were going to come at us hard, commit fouls, and try to provoke us," added the defender, a Premier League winner with Arsenal.

"We had to stay in the game, because if we started wasting energy, getting into arguments, and losing our focus, things wouldn't go well.

"So, we stayed focused. It's not easy, but sometimes it feels good to win a tough match like this, because since the start of the tournament, we've been used to scoring three goals.

"Today, it was a 1-0 win, but it's just as valuable."

Paraguay best efforts don't stop Mbappe scoring penalty

Referee missed many fouls - analysis

The 2026 World Cup has been characterised by refereeing that has tried to promote a free-flowing game.

But it went wrong for Ilgiz Tantashev.

Tantashev should have been fully aware of how Paraguay were likely to play - tough tackling and trying to limit France's ability to play freely.

The Uzbek referee should have clamped down earlier, shown his authority and given the impression that the rough tactics would not be tolerated.

See how Michael Oliver officiated in Saturday's earlier last-16 match between Canada and Morocco, producing six yellow cards before half-time. The game then calmed down, with only two shown in the second half.

The opposite happened in Philadelphia.

That the foul count was 13 to Paraguay and 11 to France does not tell a true story.

The referee missed many more fouls by the South American team – both tactical and off the ball.

Even more remarkably, not one Paraguay player was booked. But three from France were.

France advance, thanks to the penalty awarded through VAR and not the referee.

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