Mbappe tells Paraguay to ‘f*** off’ after France beat ‘absolute disgrace’ in astonishing game

It has taken 24 days and an absurd 90 games but the 2026 World Cup finally has its definitive, unparalleled individual performance.

As sub-optimal as it is for that to come from a referee, it was probably inevitable. And Ilgiz Tantashev rose to the occasion impeccably in Philadelphia.

The pure numbers were astonishing: the 13 fouls Paraguay were technically, officially adjudged to have made apparently warranted no bookings, while the 11 given against France elicited three yellow cards; the one penalty awarded somehow required the intervention of VAR to point out that Desire Doue’s knees were harmed in the making of this South America snuff film; and there was precisely zero control exerted over the game at any point.

“The fact that not one Paraguayan today was booked inside the 90 minutes is absolutely astonishing,” said BBC pundit Joe Hart of an “absolute disgrace” of a display; Thomas Hitzlsperger described it as “a miracle” that no-one was injured during “the worst refereeing performance I’ve seen in this tournament”.

In those circumstances, France making it through to the quarter-finals might genuinely be one of the most impressive feats of this entire tournament so far.

It certainly prompted one of the summer’s more powerful, apt quotes from a player more capable of walking and talking both talk and walk on this grandest of stages.

“If we have to dig our hands through sh*t, we’ll dig our hands through sh*t,” said Kylian Mbappe. “They thought we’d show up in tuxedos to play, but we know how to play dirty football too. We’ve shown we’re not just a team that knows how to play attacking football.”

The penalty hero wore a sh*t-eating grin throughout, rather than getting his hands covered in the stuff. Try as they might – and good lord they tried with all their might – Paraguay never could quite get under the skin of France’s record scorer.

They rattled three separate players into bookings, including even the typically nonchalant Michael Olise. But save for one small retaliatory shove in the first half, Mbappe never took the bait.

That he spent most of the second half laughing his French fancies off at the constant provocation underlined how Paraguay’s phenomenally effective if hilariously primitive gameplan could not quite account for a player whose middle name might well be Jules Rimet.

It was enough to dump Germany out – and it wasn’t difficult to see how. Paraguay were allowed to push the boundary to absurd levels but took full advantage of that officiating leniency to make life as uncomfortable as possible for France, while recording the single lowest pass accuracy (54%) ever witnessed in a World Cup knock-out game.

Matias Galarza’s display was particularly egregious, the 24-year-old spending his afternoon actively hunting down France players to foul while not once looking at the ball, including a delightful tribute to Ric Flair with a chop on Mbappe’s chest.

Gustavo Velazquez summed up a performance of divine housery with some penalty spot scuffing shortly before Mbappe dispatched the decisive kick from 12 yards.

And Juan Jose Caceres might as well have worn an Atletico Madrid shirt and scrawled ‘DARK ARTS’ on his forehead, so brazen were his attempts to get Diego Simeone to sign him. The Paraguay right-back even responded to Mbappe bundling him over at one stage by kicking out at him.

The homage to Argentina’s 1998 World Cup run did not end there; every time France attacked and seemed to be clean through, the camera would pan closer towards goal and reveal a back line stationed ludicrously deep, like Roberto Ayala trying to thwart a teenaged Michael Owen.

But it did work. France struggled. In the first hour, their best shots came courtesy of Manu Kone from range. It was not until Doue was introduced that they started to ask questions Paraguay could not quite answer.

The Paris Saint-Germain forward’s mazy dribbling proved too tough to counter and when Sergio Gomez dangled a quite needless leg in the area, even referee Tantashev could not quite justify completely ignoring the actual rules as he had for the previous 60 minutes, and proceeded to for the next 40.

Mbappe converted the penalty to pull level with Lionel Messi in this preposterous Golden Boot race, and one behind in the equally ridiculous all-time scorer stakes. The one France player who incontrovertibly kept his head pulled them through.

“If they tell us to f**k off, we will also tell them to f**k off,” Mbappe added after surviving an absolute war. Paraguay eventually did so, but certainly not quietly.