{"id":779628,"date":"2026-07-05T01:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T01:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/779628\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T01:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T01:13:11","slug":"mbappe-and-france-ditch-tuxedos-to-play-dirty-football-and-beat-paraguay-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/779628\/","title":{"rendered":"Mbapp\u00e9 and France ditch \u2018tuxedos\u2019 to play \u2018dirty football\u2019 and beat Paraguay | World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

On this occasion, France kept the champagne football on ice. Which was probably just as well, given the temperature. As Philadelphia broiled in an Independence Day heatwave, the World Cup<\/a> favourites were forced to drop a gear or two but still had too much for a Paraguay team that set out for a fight but were ultimately no more than a nuisance.<\/p>\n

In the annals of France-Paraguay encounters this was more France 98, a 1-0 French victory in extra time, than Sweden 58, where Just Fontaine embellished his World Cup legend with a hat-trick. Les Bleus\u2019 modern-day goal machine, Kylian Mbapp\u00e9<\/a>, had to make do with just the one, a penalty, to draw him level again with Lionel Messi in the Golden Boot race, but one behind the great man in terms of the all-time goalscoring record.<\/p>\n

Paraguay, meanwhile, will return home with whatever gloss they had acquired by dumping Germany out<\/a> in the last 32 now lost thanks to a performance that featured elbows thrown, careless tackles, and a relentless hammering of the referee, Ilgiz Tantashev of Uzbekistan. Not that Tantashev covered himself in glory with a lenient display. While Paraguay committed 13 fouls to France\u2019s 11, they escaped without a single yellow card while their opponents received three.<\/p>\n

Mbapp\u00e9 made Paraguay\u2019s approach the focus of his post-match remarks to TV cameras. \u201cWe\u2019ve shown we\u2019re not just a team that knows how to play attacking football,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we have to get our hands dirty, we will do it. They thought we\u2019d show up in tuxedos to play, but we know how to play dirty football too. We won and we were better than them.\u201d<\/p>\n

France\u2019s Ousmane Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 clashes with Paraguay players after Andr\u00e9s Cubas fouled Kylian Mbapp\u00e9. Photograph: Jeenah Moon\/Reuters<\/p>\n

This was undoubtedly a big occasion. And on the day of the semiquincentennial anniversary of the US declaration of independence, there was no way Philadelphia would not commemorate the moment. The celebration was predictably grand, with an interpretation of the stars and stripes rendered on the pitch, formation dancing and a performance of America the Beautiful by a boys\u2019 choir. This being Philly, local rap superstars the Roots also performed a quick set and a member of the group bounced around in the formidable heat while also playing the french horn.<\/p>\n

Rap at 100F \u2013 38C \u2013 is possible, it appears, but playing football is more of a challenge. A game that was already likely to end up as cat chasing mouse was made even cagier by the fact neither party was able to chase. France<\/a> dominated possession in the first half; as they returned to play after the opening, much-needed hydration break, they had 208 passes to Paraguay\u2019s 33. Those passes were almost entirely in front of the Paraguay defence, however, as France sought to let the ball do the work on their behalf.<\/p>\n

It was a long-term bet, a prediction that Paraguay would not be able to close down every gap for the duration of the match. Paraguay, meanwhile, had not signed up to be drummed into submission. They were compact, organised and possessed by a live spirit that sought only to frustrate and annoy the French at any opportunity. But after the half-time break, with shadow extending over much of the pitch, France were more like themselves and Paraguay had to resort to ever more desperate measures to stop them.<\/p>\n

It was only in the 55th minute that the French had their first shot on target, a long-range effort from Manu Kon\u00e9 that was well saved by Orlando Gill. But there was little in the way of penetration into the Paraguay area and, after a succession of long-range efforts went nowhere, Deschamps acted, removing Bradley Barcola after he wasted an opportunity on the hour, and replacing him with D\u00e9sir\u00e9 Dou\u00e9.<\/p>\n

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Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 prepares to take the penalty with which France beat Paraguay. Photograph: Dylan Martinez\/Reuters<\/p>\n

It had the d\u00e9sir\u00e9-d effect. Stationed on the left, Dou\u00e9 immediately set about taking on the Paraguay defence and now you could see the impact on the South Americans of an hour chasing the ball. In the 64th minute Dou\u00e9 got the ball and went straight for the box. He beat one, he beat two and he was brought down by the third, Diego Gomez. Tantashev initially called no foul but, eventually, the video assistant referee had other ideas. When the penalty was confirmed, and Tantashev had restored the penalty spot after Paraguayan scuffing, Mbapp\u00e9 sent Gill the wrong way to score.<\/p>\n

Gill denied the France captain in stoppage time with an impressive double save, which means Mbapp\u00e9 has only 19 goals in 19 World Cup appearances. With a quarter-final against Morocco just five days away, he will soon have a chance to correct the record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On this occasion, France kept the champagne football on ice. Which was probably just as well, given the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-779628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}