France booked their place in the World Cup quarter-finals with a hard-fought 1-0 win over Paraguay, but much of the attention after the match focused on Paraguay’s behaviour rather than the result.After impressing fans by eliminating Germany on penalties in the previous round, Paraguay faced criticism for their aggressive tactics in a heated and ill-tempered contest in Philadelphia. Speaking to BBC One, Former England goalkeeper Joe Hart did not hold back, saying: “Paraguay’s players were an absolute disgrace. If they were on my team, I’d be dragging them off the pitch.”Several incidents involving Paraguay players went unpunished, including challenges on Adrien Rabiot and Kylian Mbappe, while France players received multiple yellow cards. Former England defender Micah Richards said: “It was embarrassing to see. Paraguay are better than that. Defensively they were so good and they didn’t need to get into these antics.”The game’s decisive moment came 20 minutes from time when Desire Doue was brought down in the box. After reviewing the incident on the monitor, referee Ilgiz Tantashev awarded France a penalty.Paraguay players protested heavily and attempted to delay the spot-kick, with Gustavo Velazquez even trying to damage the penalty spot before Mbappe converted to score his seventh goal of the tournament, drawing level with Lionel Messi in the Golden Boot race.France coach Didier Deschamps later revealed: “There were some insults form the other bench we could have done without.”Tensions continued after the final whistle as players clashed again. Former Scotland winger Pat Nevin summed up Paraguay’s approach by saying: “Paraguay tried to wind up the France players, little shoves and nudges but not enough to get a yellow card. Every single dark art you can use.”France will now face Morocco in the quarter-finals.
