IN the 10th minute of injury time in the second half, three Paraguay players tried to get into a physical altercation with Kylian Mbappe. On all three occasions, the French captain laughed off the taunts and the insults, something even the Paraguay bench engaged in during the course of the game. The Paraguay players, frustrated at how the match had gone, were desperate to leave a mark, but the 27-year-old, who had scored the game's only goal, refused to engage with the opposition.
Matias Galarza, Gustavo Velazquez and Juan Caceres had all initiated some kind of contact in the hope of a retaliation, but the Real Madrid forward only had eyes on the final prize: a gritty, hard-fought victory over resilient opponents. But once the final whistle cut through the very hot Philadelphia Stadium — some reports suggested that the game was one of the hottest in the history of the tournament — Mbappe gave back. He refused to shake the hands with the goalkeeper, Orlando Gill. He then made it a point to celebrate in front of Junior Alonso.
France's 1-0 win over their South American opponents to advance to the last eight was that kind of game. If their peerless march over the first three weeks was thanks to imperious pass-and-move football, this owed a lot to their tenacity, staying cool, and ensuring they didn't take the bait when the game was on. "We showed that we are not only a team who plays flashy, attacking football," Mbappe said after the game. "If we have to put our hands in the s***, we will put our hands in the s***.
"They thought we would show up in our tuxedos, make some fancy moves, but football's not just that. We did it today. We were better than them."
At the end, when Gill threw the ball at Mbappe when no handshake was forthcoming, it became so fractious that coach Didier Deschamps sent two of his stronger players to protect his prized asset from getting involved.
In TV studios around the world, there was universal condemnation for Paraguay. On the BBC, former England goalkeeper Joe Hart called it a 'disgrace'. "If they were my players, I would be dragging them off the pitch.” On Fox Sports, Zlatan Ibrahimovic said 'I would like to play the real game'. On the same channel, Thierry Henry didn't want to talk about the South Americans. "Football won," the former World Cup winner noted.
For the first 70 minutes, France were in danger of being suffocated out of the contest because of a very low block and some very clever gamesmanship. On a few occasions, the Paraguayans even seemed to elbow the French players in off-the-ball incidents, but the on-field referee inexplicably waved play on. However, when they weren't blatantly indulging in the 'dark arts', their tactic of denying France space in behind was clearly working. In fact, France's first shot on goal came only in the 22nd minute; such was Paraguay's discipline. Their front four, who have already lit up the World Cup, had nothing to work with because the South American team had nine players in front of the ball when they didn't have possession. It was one bank of five, one bank of four and an open challenge; either play through us or go around us. The two-time world champions tried both avenues. The worrying thing, though, was they had managed zero clear-cut chances in the first hour as the play was entirely in front of Paraguay's back-line.
In terms of xG, it was 0.15 (France) to 0.05. Mbappe's men had managed only five pop shots from distance (none of them on target) while Paraguay had only two. In terms of passing, it was 276 to 43, but here was their main problem. It just wasn't incisive or crisp enough to trouble the opponents. As the second half wore on, Deschamps had seen enough. He brought on Desire Doue, whose command of the ball in tight spaces and dribbling skills make him a great asset against low blocks.
The reward was almost instantaneous as he cut in from the left, evaded a few Paraguayan legs before he was bundled over in the box. Even in real time, it was a clear trip, but the referee needed VAR's assistance. While all this was going on, a Paraguayan leg was busy scuffing the penalty spot in a bid to make the surface uneven. That, though, made no difference to Mbappe, who sent the keeper the wrong way en route to scoring his seventh goal of the World Cup. He missed other chances to score but, in the end, one was always going to be enough.
Saturday's result: Paraguay 0 lost to France 1 (Mbappe 70-pen').