Paraguay have been branded a ‘disgrace’ and ’embarrassing’ for the dirty tactics they used in their 1-0 World Cup defeat by France.
Going up against the tournament favourites, the Paraguayans used every trick in the book to try and provoke their opponents, repeatedly fouling, faking injury and trying to wind up Les Bleus with overly aggressive conduct.
They scuffed up the penalty spot, elbowed Dayot Upamecano in the ribs, palmed Jules Kounde’s face, tried to get Michael Olise sent off with outrageous play-acting and somehow ended up without a single booking from referee Ilgiz Tantashev.
The pundits in the BBC studio savaged the behaviour of the South Americans, with former England goalkeeper Joe Hart saying: ‘The Paraguayan players were an absolute disgrace tonight, if they were on my team I’d be dragging half of them off the pitch.
‘I would never want to win that way, I would never want to play football that way and the referee didn’t help in any of the circumstances.
‘The fact that not one Paraguayan today was booked inside the 90 minutes is absolutely astonishing.
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Matias Galarza (left) is seen putting in a nasty challenge on Kylian Mbappe that went unpunished
‘But fair play to France, you can see what it means, sometimes you can play beautiful football but when you grind out a result as a team and do it like they did tonight, it’s superb.’
Some of the French players were clearly incensed by their treatment but managed to just about keep a lid on their emotions and avoid a red card that the Paraguayans were trying to provoke them into.
After the game, Kylian Mbappe, who scored the winner from the spot, said: ‘If they tell us to f**k off, we will also tell them to f**k off.’
He went on to add: ‘If we have to get our hands dirty, we’ll do it. Apologies for the expression.
‘They thought we’d just turn up in tuxedos, make a few flashy moves and play a few passes.
‘We know how to play rough football too. And that’s exactly what we did today – we won. We were even better than them at that.’
Micah Richards agreed with Hart’s assessment and said he was disappointed because Paraguay’s win over Germany showed they did not need to resort to poor discipline to win.
He explained: ‘Paraguay are better than that though. Defensively they were so good, they were organised, they don’t need to get into these sort of antics, it was embarrassing to see and I think Joe was exactly right.
Mbappe and Co were able to keep their cool in the face of relentless provocation
Joe Hart, Thomas Hitzlsperger and Micah Richards piled into the Paraguay team
‘All those tactics and the s***housery that they showed, they didn’t need to do it. They tried to draw France into that and France nearly did but in the end they behaved in the right fashion.
‘It was too much tonight, there should have been at least five or six yellow cards in that game. Ultimately, France won’t care because they got through to the next round.’
Former Aston Villa and West Ham midfielder Thomas Hitzlsperger was also in the studio and said he’d lost respect for Paraguay.
‘I had a lot of respect for Paraguay heading into the game and I’m glad my vocabulary in English is not that good because Joe has said ‘disgraceful’, I have various other words in German but not English’, he said.
‘I have little to no respect anymore for this Paraguay team, the way they behaved on the penalty incident.
Galarza feigns injury in an attempt to get Michael Olise sent off in the second half
‘If you’re from Paraguay you probably like that team and see them as warriors, if you’re a French supporter or neutral you can’t have any respect anymore for the way they behaved, this is not just disgraceful, this is even worse.
‘That Mbappe and everyone walked off the pitch uninjured to me is just a miracle and the referee gave the worst performance I’ve seen in this tournament.’
France have been the most impressive team of the World Cup so far but had to show a different side to their game on Saturday night.
The composure in the face of hostility and provocation should serve Deschamps’ men well with tough battles to come and next up they face Morocco in the quarter-finals.
