🎥 Dirty Paraguay, Mbappé: Get dirty? OK! 🤯 Ibra: I'd get 5 🟥...

🎥 Dirty Paraguay, Mbappé: Get dirty? OK! 🤯 Ibra: I'd get 5 🟥... France beat Paraguay and qualify for the quarter-finals . Kylian Mbappé ’s penalty made the difference, but it was anything but a walk in the park. The South Americans, in fact, followed the same script as in the match against Germany, putting on a show “not suitable for minors” . Kicks, playacting and unsporting gestures: plenty happened over the 90 minutes in Philadelphia, and the main characters were always the same. By now, the whole world has gotten to know Matías Galarza , the River Plate full-back who at this World Cup has made a name for himself with his talent for provocation. After the show against Germany, where to be fair the 2002-born player had actually played a great match, tonight everything was taken even further and—once again—Paraguay clearly benefited from it. 😤 Mbappé’s difficult night It can’t have been easy for France not to react to the provocation. There were plenty of fouls, and plenty of insults too. Meanwhile, the minutes ticked by and the score remained stuck at 0-0. Then the penalty won by Doué and converted by Mbappé effectively settled the contest, and the Blues were finally able to play out the closing minutes without the anxiety of having to find a goal. In any case, as we were saying, it was a tense, nerve-racking match for the world runners-up too. That explains Kylian Mbappé’s reaction : when the final whistle blew, he let himself go with a celebration that was anything but restrained, right “in the face of” Paraguay goalkeeper Gill. It was a gesture that did not go down well and drew criticism on social media, but it probably needs to be viewed in the context of everything that had happened. Even during the match, the Real Madrid star had been “caught” by the cameras, which picked up lip-reading of him insulting an opposing player’s mother . Not pretty scenes, but they fall into that catch-all pot called “things that happen on the pitch,” which includes everything that—within limits—goes on during a game and is partially justified by the adrenaline of the moment. Mbappé himself spoke after the match in an interview in which he did not mince his words when describing it: " I think we already knew what kind of match to expect. But I think what happened today was really very positive: the game we played and the way we approached it. We showed that we are not just a team that knows how to play attacking football . If we have to get our hands dirty in the shit, we do it—pardon the expression—without any problem. They thought we would come out in a jacket and tie, just making pretty plays and little triangles. But we also know how to play dirty, hard, combative football, and today we did it and won. In that respect too, we were superior to them ." The message, in short, is clear: watch out, because we’re not just about style. 😅 Ibra: “I would’ve picked up 4 or 5 reds...” Zlatan Ibrahimovic , also working as a Fox Sport pundit at this World Cup, did not like Paraguay’s performance either, stressing that if he had been in the French players’ shoes, he would have been sent off: " A difficult challenge for France, they had to focus more on not falling for the provocation and their little tricks than on playing. Is it difficult? It is, very. I would’ve picked up 4 or 5 reds today and sent them where I know ... I don’t like playing these kinds of matches, I want to play real games. But it’s part of football and I understand it. France showed calm and smiles, they scored and they won, and that’s the best way to respond ". This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇮🇹 here.