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Kylian Mbappe has criticised Paraguay as “dirty” after France endured a frustrating outing against them in their World Cup last-16 tie.
Mbappe now stands one goal behind Lionel Messi in the list of World Cup all-time record goalscorers after he converted a spot-kick to seal France’s 1-0 win and book a quarter-final against Morocco.
But he and many others criticised Paraguay’s tactics as the South American outfit showed their ugly side, with Andres Cubas hacking down Adrien Rabiot, Juan Jose Caseras kicking Mbappe, and Gabriel Avalos elbowing Dayot Upamecano in the stomach, among other nasty incidents which went unnoticed.
No Paraguay player was booked while all three of Manu Kone, Michael Olise and Bradley Barcola saw yellow for France, with Uzbek referee Ilgiz Tantashev widely panned for his laissez-faire approach to officiating the game.
However France got the breakthrough with 20 minutes to go as Diego Gomez brought down Desire Doue. Tantashev was sent to the monitor and ultimately awarded Les Bleus a penalty, which Mbappe converted for his seventh goal of the tournament.
The spot-kick was not without incident either as Paraguay surrounded Tantashev in protest and Gustavo Velazquez attempted to scuff the penalty spot before Mbappe stepped up.
Mbappe said afterwards: “If we have to get our hands dirty, we will do it. We’ve shown we’re not just a team that knows how to play attacking football.
“We know how to play ugly football. They [Paraguay] thought we’d show up in tuxedos, but we were ready. Even at that game, we were better than them.
Didier Deschamps kept his cool despite the frustrating tactics (Reuters)
“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.”
There was more drama at full-time as Paraguay keeper Orlando Gill threw the ball at Mbappe’s back, while Velazquez continued his antics by attempting to confront some of the France squad.
France boss Didier Deschamps put it diplomatically afterwards: “There were some insults from the other bench we could have done without.”
Deschamps revealed that he had asked his players to shield Mbappe in the closing stages, adding: “I asked the two biggest lads to go and stand around Kylian at the end because they were going to chop him down.
“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.”
Paraguay keeper Orlando Gill threw the ball at Kylian Mbappe’s back after the striker refused to shake hands with him (Getty)
Rayan Cherki said later: “We knew it was going to be a fiercely contested match. 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 they had prepared psychologically for how to respond to Paraguay’s tactics. The Arsenal defender said: “They were going to come at us hard, commit fouls, and try to provoke us.
“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.”