Online Reporter
FRANCE’S World Cup battle with savage Paraguay descended into chaos – with a mammoth bust-up after the full-time whistle.
The Paraguay goalkeeper threw the ball at match-winner Kylian Mbappe when the French captain snubbed his handshake.
And further up the pitch, Paraguay players and coaches ran on to spark more fiery drama.
It came after several flashpoints throughout the spicy showdown in Philadelphia – as tempers boiled over in the searing heat.
Mbappe reacted to a cynical drag back by shoving Andres Cubas, leading to a mass brawl. Minutes later, Matias Galarza took a swing at Mbappe off the ball and caught him.
Mbappe – who laughed off much of the brutal treatment – scored the only goal of the game with his 70th-minute penalty, given after a VAR check for a blatant foul on Desire Doue.
But even before the kick, Paraguay did their best to get in his head by roughing up the penalty spot.
There were plenty more incidents as Paraguay tried to boot lumps out of their rivals and play-act to get one sent off – while Juan Jose Caceres kicked out at Mbappe in a David Beckham-style petulant swipe – although somehow the yellow card count was 3-1… to France – with only a Paraguay assistant getting his name taken.
But it was to no avail as they were sent packing.
And the BBC pundits slammed Paraguay for their shocking behaviour – during and after the game.
BBC pundit Joe Hart raged it was an “absolute disgrace” from the South Americans – especially the penalty spot antics.
The ex-England goalkeeper said: “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.
“Even Kylian Mbappe, even with him laughing, you can tell inside he wants to do something else.
“If I’m Gill [the goalkeeper] I don’t care if it’s my own player. I’m ripping the shirt off his back.
“That is not how I want to play the game. Disgusting. I’m so glad he [Mbappe] sat him down and slotted this. Yes Kylian, yes!”
He also said on Galarza’s needless whack on Mbappe: “That could easily be a red card.
“I’m not saying I want it to be but he’s gone out of his way to assault him as he tried to charge through.”
Thomas Hitzlsperger reckons it was a “miracle” France got through without suffering any major injuries while Micah Richards said it was “embarrassing to see”.
Hitzlsperger added: “There is other words I would use in German but I don’t have them in English, because I have little to no respect anymore.
“This is not just disgraceful, this is even worse. The way Kylian Mbappe and the entire team have controlled themselves, that they didn’t walk off the pitch injured, to me is almost a miracle.
“And the referee is probably the worst I’ve seen this tournament.”
But Mbappe could not help but smirk when quizzed about the 100-minute war – and delivered the knockout quote as he hit back at Paraguay.
The France man said: “If we have to get our hands dirty, we’ll get our hands dirty. We have no problem with that.
“They thought we were going to come and play in tuxedos, that we were just going to come and make some nice plays.
“We know how to play dirty football too and we did it today, we won, and even in that, we were better than them.
“It’s their way of playing football. Everyone plays with their strengths. There is no right or wrong way to play football.
“There is only one way and that’s to win. They tried to beat us like that, but we beat them like that too. Now we move on to the next stage. We need to recover and focus on Morocco.”
The first major incident came when Cubas and his Paraguay team-mates did not take kindly to Mbappe’s reaction following the tug as he tried to wriggle away from the midfielder.
And that led to a mass pushing match with players from both sides piling in – including Ousmane Dembele who ran over to get involved.
Referee Ilgiz Tantashev even got in between Mbappe and Diego Gomez to help break it up and diffuse the drama.
Minutes later, Galarza took his swing at Mbappe off the ball, leaving the superstar forward rolling on the floor as he continued to be targeted by the South American side’s antics.
However, replays suggested Galarza only caught the striker on the hand.
The Paraguay tactic to rile up the favourites and disrupt their rhythm clearly worked as the crunch clash was goalless at half-time.
Mbappe was even spotted laughing at Paraguay’s brutal treatment of him while Didier Deschamps complained to Tantashev about the rough tackles at the break. – Sun.
