Paraguay’s World Cup ‘disgrace’: Furious BBC pundits savage ’embarrassing’ South Americans after last-16 clash descended into chaos with ‘dirty’ tactics – as Kylian Mbappe hits back with F-bomb response
Paraguay was described as “disgraceful” and “shameful” for the dirty tactics it used in the World Cup match where it lost 1-0 to France.
Battling against the tournament favorites, the Paraguayans used every trick in the book to provoke their opponents; He fouled repeatedly, faked injury and tried to finish off Les Bleus with overly aggressive behavior.
They swarmed the penalty spot, elbowed Dayot Upamecano in the ribs, cupped Jules Kounde’s face, tried to get Michael Olise sent off with an ugly play, and somehow failed to receive a single yellow card from referee Ilgiz Tantashev.
Pundits in the BBC studio slammed the South Americans’ behaviour, with former England goalkeeper Joe Hart saying: ‘The Paraguayan players were an absolute disgrace tonight, if they were in my team I’d drag half of them off the pitch.
‘I would never want to win this way, I would never want to play football this way and the referee was not helpful in any situation.
‘It is absolutely surprising that not a single Paraguayan received a yellow card in 90 minutes today.
Your browser does not support iframes.
Matias Galarza (left)’s harsh challenge on Kylian Mbappe went unpunished
‘But you see what it means to be fair to France, sometimes you can play nice football but when you get a result as a team and you do it like they did tonight, it’s fantastic.’
Some of the French players were clearly enraged at the way they were treated, but they managed to keep their emotions almost under control and avoid the red card that the Paraguayans tried to provoke them into.
After the game, Kylian Mbappe, who scored the game-winning goal, said: ‘If they tell us to fuck off, we’ll tell them to fuck off.’
He continued: ‘If we have to get our hands dirty, we’ll do it. We apologize for the expression.
‘They thought we’d show up in tuxedos, make a few flashy moves and make a few passes.
‘We also know how to play hard football. That’s exactly what we did today; we won We were even better than them at this.’
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 is better than this. Defensively they were very good, they were organised, they didn’t need to get into that kind of shenanigans, it was a shame to see it and I think Joe was absolutely right.
Join the discussion
Should teams be penalized for using dirty tactics to win matches, or is this just part of football?
Mbappe and Co managed to keep their cool in the face of relentless provocations
Joe Hart, Thomas Hitzlsperger and Micah Richards make the Paraguay team
‘All the tactics and grandiosity they showed, they didn’t need to do that. They tried to draw France into this, France almost did it, but in the end they acted correctly.
‘There were too many tonight, there should have been at least 5-6 yellow cards in that match. In the end France won’t care because they managed to get through to the next round.’
Former Aston Villa and West Ham midfielder Thomas Hitzlsperger was also in the studio and said he had lost respect for Paraguay.
‘I had great respect for Paraguay coming into the game and I was glad my English vocabulary wasn’t that good because Joe said ‘it’s a shame’, I have a lot of other words in German but not English,’ he said.
‘I now have little or no respect for the Paraguay team and their behavior in the penalty incident.
Galarza faked injury to get Michael Olise sent off in second half
‘If you are Paraguayan you probably love this team and see them as warriors, if you are a French supporter or neutral you can no longer respect their behavior, it is not only a shame, it is worse.
‘It’s just a miracle for me that Mbappe and everyone came off the field unscathed 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 in their match on Saturday night.
The composure shown in the face of hostility and provocation will serve Deschamps’ men well in the tough competitions ahead as they next face Morocco in the quarter-finals.
