PHILADELPHIA: World Cup favourites France ground their way into the quarter-finals thanks to a 1-0 victory over a grubby Paraguay team who were a disgrace to the finals.

This World Cup is well rid of a team who, even in this knockout stage, made no effort to engage in a football contest let alone try to win a place in the quarter-finals by their own right. Indeed, they appeared to think that the term ‘knockout’ was about physical assault rather than competition linguistics.

The Paraguayans were assisted in their grubby anti-football strategy by an accomplice in the Uzbek referee Ilgiz Tantashev and his aides who ignored the laws of the game concerning foul play and the purpose of a yellow card. How he was selected for the finals by FIFA refereeing director Pierluigi Collina and the Italian’s advisers is a mystery.

Ilgiz even needed a VAR prompt to be sent to the video screen before he reluctantly awarded the match-deciding penalty for an obvious trip on substitute Desire Doue.

Kylian Mbappe stepped up and, after the predictable Paraguayan histrionics, struck his 19th World Cup goal in his 19th finals appearance. He is now level as joint leader with Leo Messi in these finals with seven goals apiece and is one behind the Argentinian in the all-time ranking.

Mbappe might have scored again in second half stoppage time when he was defied by a remarkable double save from goalkeeper Orlando Gill. He came off the pitch delighted to be both still in one piece and leading his team into a quarter-final against Morocco.

France’s captain said: “We knew what kind ​of match we were going to have. If 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. That’s their football – there is no right or wrong way to ​play the game. They tried to get at us that way but we won.”

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