Kylian Mbappe shrugged off Paraguay’s constant provocations with a smile before delivering the decisive blow to lead France to an emphatic 1-0 World Cup win on a hot Saturday afternoon in Philadelphia.
After celebrating the victory, which took France into the quarter-finals, Mbappe sent a message to the rest of the teams remaining at the World Cup, saying his side could also “get their hands dirty” and adapt to “ugly” tactics.
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“We knew what kind of match awaited us,” Mbappe said in French. “We can also get our hands dirty, we know how to do it. We know how to play ugly football. I think they thought we’d show up in tuxedos, but we were prepared.”
With a heat warning in effect throughout the match, with temperatures hovering around 100 degrees, Mbappe finally broke through against a physical, defensive Paraguay team, converting a penalty in the 70th minute.
That was enough for Les Bleus, whose red, white and blue-clad fans looked quite patriotic on the Fourth of July in the city where the United States was founded 250 years ago.
Mbappe, 27, has seven goals at this World Cup (tied with Lionel Messi) and 19 in 19 World Cup matches – just one behind the Argentine, who holds the record for most goals scored in the tournament. Mbappe also became the only player to score at least three goals in the knockout stages of three World Cups.
France midfielder Ryan Cherki, who came on as a late substitute, shared Mbappe’s opinion of the Paraguayan’s physical style.
“We knew that today we would show less of our technical and tactical abilities. We reminded everyone that the French team is not just about football. If you go to war with us, this is the answer you can expect,” Cherki said.
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After the match, the situation remained tense. Players from both sides converged near the center circle, and Paraguay goalkeeper Orlando Gill fired the ball into Mbappe’s back.
“I tried to shake his hand, but because he didn’t pay any attention to me, I lost my temper,” Gill said.
Les Blais scored 13 goals in the first five games of the tournament, but were blocked by a Paraguay team that tried to turn the match into a rock brawl.
France coach Didier Deschamps said after the match: “It wasn’t easy. If we had taken one of our chances late in the game it would have been a much more comfortable finish.”
“Paraguay is using every trick possible. It’s not necessarily something people enjoy watching, but we stayed focused and that’s not easy.”
There were also bad words spoken in Spanish on the pitch, with Mbappe and Matias Galarza getting into a verbal altercation at one point.
“We fought,” said France defender William Saliba. “We won the battle.”
France advanced to play Morocco in the quarterfinals on Thursday in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
Information from ESPN’s Julien Lawrence and the Associated Press was used in this report.