France booked their place in the 2026 World Cup quarter-finals with a hard-fought 1-0 win over a dogged Paraguay side in Philadelphia on Saturday.
Los Guaranies brought their usual brand of gamesmanship and aggression to the table in a bid to disrupt Les Bleus. For 70 minutes, it worked, with France struggling to create clear openings and often taking the bait, allowing themselves to be wound up by opposition defenders.
But eventually, superior quality shone through, with Desire Doue winning a penalty just minutes after coming on, and Kylian Mbappe dispatching it despite Paraguay’s best efforts to put him off.
Didier Deschamps’ side will now take on Morocco in the last eight, while Paraguay exit at the round of 16 for the fourth time in their last six World Cup appearances.
Paraguay let loose by spineless referee
On paper, this had the makings of a tournament classic. The tournament favourites and an overwhelming attacking force, coming up against a resolute underdog with just enough attacking quality to cause concern.
In reality, the game panned out very differently and quickly descended into a rather difficult watch.
The numbers really speak for themselves when illustrating which side were here to play football, with France outpassing and outshooting Paraguay 510-99 and 15-5, respectively. It was at the other end of the pitch where Gustavo Alfaro’s men ran up the numbers:
Paraguay vs France defensive stats:
- Tackles: Paraguay 29-14 France
- Interceptions: Paraguay 14-10 France
- Blocks: Paraguay 4-1 France
- Fouls: 13-11
That final statistic will shock anyone who watched this game, however.
Paraguay came to Philadelphia with the sole purpose of making this game as difficult as possible for France, and to do that, they bent and distorted the rule book to within an inch of its life.
Crunching tackle after sneaky elbow was landed on French players. Paraguayans got into the faces of their European counterparts, left a boot in just a second longer than necessary, and came in at 70mph when 50 would have done the job. Even the penalty spot wasn’t safe, with Gustavo Velazquez roughing up the turf in a bid to take Mbappe out of his stride.
Given their form at this tournament, this was to be expected from Paraguay. What was most disappointing was that referee Ilgiz Tantashev and his team — both in-stadium and VAR — were happy to let most of it go.
Despite their robust approach, not one single Paraguayan player was shown a yellow card (France were booked three times) while, as shown above, the South Americans committed just two more fouls than the French. The latter absolutely wasn’t the result of clean play or similar styles on the pitch.
A French exit would have blown this World Cup wide open. However, even some fans of fellow contenders Argentina, Spain and England will be admitting that football won the day here.
Mbappe keeps his cool as football wins
As mentioned, even the most ardent rival will have felt their blood boiling at what France had to deal with in this match. However, deal with it they did, and Kylian Mbappe deserves a huge share of the praise for that.
The Real Madrid man was, unsurprisingly, the primary target of Paraguayan histrionics, with opposition players crowding him and roughing him up throughout in a bid to get a reaction.
Things hit fever pitch as Mbappe waited to take the penalty, with Paraguay crowding the striker and referee, holding up the spot kick by a significant amount.
None of it affected Mbappe, however. The French record goalscorer passed the ball into the bottom corner with ultimate composure, sending Orlando Gill the wrong way and never looking like he’d even considered missing a possibility.
Every time Paraguay tried to get under Mbappe’s skin, he responded by laughing it off, leading by example for a French side that had to keep their cool in the face of South American heat.
And now that the dust has settled, everybody will be very much aware that Mbappe has drawn level with Lionel Messi at the top of the Golden Boot race with seven goals.
Harry Kane and Erling Haaland are next on five and have the chance to respond on Sunday, but it feels like France and Mbappe just came through the ultimate test.
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