Paraguay bow out proudly after pushing tournament favourites France to the limit
\n Pennsylvania
\nKylian Mbappe converted from the spot in the 70th minute for his 19th career World Cup goal and seventh of this tournament as France outlasted Paraguay to reach the quarterfinals with a 1-0 victory on Saturday in a steamy round of 16 encounter.
\nWith the penalty, earned by substitute Desire Doue\u2019s slaloming run into the area, Mbappe pulled even with Argentina\u2019s Lionel Messi atop the 2026 Golden Boot leaderboard and moved within one of the 39-year-old for the all-time World Cup goals lead.
\nIt was all Les Bleus needed against a resilient but limited Albirroja side, who offered little going forward, but defended admirably and tried to bait their foes into off-the-ball combat in sweltering conditions with temperatures nearing 100 Fahrenheit.
\n\u201cWe knew what kind of match we were going to have,\u201d Mbappe said via an interpreter. \u201cIf we have to get our hands dirty, we can do that. We can play ugly football. They thought we would turn up in tuxedos, but we were there. Even at that game, we were better than them.
\nThat\u2019s their football\u2013there is no right or wrong way to play the game. They tried to get at us that way, but we won.\u201d
\nFrance advance to meet Morocco next Thursday in Foxborough, Mass., in a rematch of the 2022 semifinal that ended in a 2-0 French victory.
\nParaguay shocked Germany on penalties following a 1-1 draw in the round of 32 on Monday, a result that inspired president Santiago Pena to declare Tuesday a national holiday.
\nBut the Albirroja still exited a round shy of their all-time best quarterfinal finish in 2010, which doubled as their last World Cup finals appearance.
\nThe South Americans frustrated the two-time World Champions throughout the first half and well into the second, aided in part by the card-shy approach of Uzbek referee Ilgiz Tantashev. When he did reach for his pocket, it was puzzling for three French offenders even though Paraguay led 12-9 in fouls.
\n\u201cIt wasn\u2019t easy. They used every trick in the book,\u201d France manager Didier Deschamps said via an interpreter. \u201cIt is 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.
\n\u201cI asked the two biggest lads to go and stand around Kylian at the end because they were going to chop him down.\u201d
\nBut Paraguay had no solution for the injection of energy Doue brought after Deschamps inserted him in the 61st minute for Bradley Barcola.
\nMoments after Tantashev waved off appeals for a foul on Mbappe just outside the box, Doue\u2019s excellent incisive dribbling in from the left forced an awkward challenge from the left leg of Diego Gomez that required the referee to make another decision.
\nInitially he reached the same conclusion and held his whistle, only to be summoned to the replay monitor by his VAR lead Juan Lara. Eventually he saw Gomez\u2019s clear foul.
\nAfter some delaying tactics by Paraguay on the spot, Mbappe neatly converted into the bottom right corner as goalkeeper Orlando Gill guessed in the opposite direction.
\nClearly fatigued by the conditions and their 120-minute effort against the Germans, Paraguay tried at last to get numbers forward. Substitute Mauricio mustered their first effort on target in the 90th minute.
\nBut it was France who looked more likely to add another goal, with Gill doing well to deny Mbappe a brace with one stop in the 89th minute and two more in the sixth minute of second-half stoppage time.
\n\u201cParaguay is leaving with our heads held high,\u201d Gill said. \u201cI believe without the penalty we could have done it. We did very well in the first half, we were avoiding all of the throughballs. It was unfortunate there was a penalty, but football is like this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paraguay bow out proudly after pushing tournament favourites France to the limit Pennsylvania Kylian Mbappe converted from the spot in the 70th minute for his 19th career World Cup goal and seventh of this tournament as France outlasted Paraguay to reach the quarterfinals with a 1-0 victory on Saturday in a steamy round of 16 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-554811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"\n