Mbappé's penalty carried France past Paraguay and into the World Cup quarter-finals on Saturday, settling a bad-tempered last-16 tie that ended with players squaring up at the centre circle and both benches trading accusations.
Mbappé's penalty carried France past Paraguay and into the World Cup quarter-finals on Saturday, settling a bad-tempered last-16 tie that ended with players squaring up at the centre circle and both benches trading accusations.
In 38°C heat, on July 4th in the city where the United States was founded, Paraguay set out to drag the tournament favourites into a scrap. For 70 minutes it worked, and France, which scored 13 goals across their first five matches, were reduced to shots from distance while Gustavo Alfaro's side slowed the game to a crawl and kicked whatever moved.
The breakthrough came only when Diego Gómez caught Désiré Doué in the box and Uzbek referee Ilgiz Tantashev, sent to the pitchside monitor, pointed to the spot. Mbappé stuttered up and rolled it in.
The card count tells its own story. The referee booked three Frenchmen and not a single Paraguayan, despite Gustavo Velázquez kicking out at Mbappé and Matías Galarza leaving Jules Koundé in a heap.
At full time it nearly came off the rails: players from both squads converged near halfway, and Paraguay goalkeeper Orlando Gill threw a ball at Mbappé's back. "I tried to shake his hand, but since he didn't pay me any attention, I lost my temper," he explained after the match.
Mbappé, who traded words in Spanish with Galarza during the match, did not soften anything at the microphone. "We knew what kind of match we were going to have," he said. "We can also get our hands dirty, we know how to do it. We know how to play ugly football. Guess they were thinking we were going to show up in tuxedos, but we were ready."
Substitute Rayan Cherki was blunter still: "If you go to war with us, this is the response you can expect."
Didier Deschamps revealed a sourer note from the touchline. "I could have done without the insults on the bench. Especially some of them," he said, while conceding Paraguay "use every trick in the book."
Alfaro flatly denied his staff had crossed that line. "You can't sink that low in football. Never," the Paraguay coach said. "Football isn't war. I'm not going to apologize for something that, to my knowledge, didn't happen." He insisted his first act after the whistle was to seek out Deschamps and wish him well.
France face Morocco in the quarter-finals at Boston Stadium on Thursday, July 9. It is France's fourth straight trip to the last eight. Morocco qualified for the quarter-finals after a 3-0 win against co-hosts Canada.
