France coach Didier Deschamps took immediate action to protect star forward Kylian Mbappe after a fiery 1-0 victory over Paraguay in the World Cup round of 16. Deschamps instructed two of his strongest bench players to flank Mbappe at full-time, fearing the opposition might target the 27-year-old following a combative match in Philadelphia.
Mbappe scores winner in tempestuous affair
Mbappe scored the only goal of the game from the penalty spot, as Paraguay employed aggressive fouling throughout the 90 minutes without receiving a single yellow card. The match threatened to boil over on multiple occasions, with Paraguay's frustration boiling over at full-time as players confronted French stars and vented at match officials.
After the final whistle, Mbappe ignored Paraguay goalkeeper Orlando Gill and roared "Vamos!" to the crowd, having kept his composure during the match except for laughing at opposition players.
Deschamps: 'I don't want to lose any players'
"Kylian, I remember that in 2018 against Uruguay I had to take him off because they were going to take him down," Deschamps said. "So I asked the two strongest players on the bench to go and protect him immediately at the end because you never know, the match is never over, I don't want to lose any players."
Paraguay's Gustavo Velazquez had to be separated from William Saliba, but France's players were eventually able to celebrate with their fans, singing and dancing after booking a quarter-final clash against Morocco.
Mbappe: 'We know how to play dirty football'
Mbappe anticipated receiving close attention from Paraguay and was pleased his side proved they could handle such adversity. "We knew what kind of match we were going to have," he said. "If we have to get our hands dirty, we know how to do it. We know how to play dirty football. They thought we were going to come and play in tuxedos, but we were there. Even in that game, we were better than them. That's their football; there's no right or wrong way to play football. They tried to get us that way, but we won."
Manchester City's Rayan Cherki echoed that sentiment, saying France were able to 'wage war'. "We knew it was going to be a very intense match," Cherki said. "But it was important to us to play a game like this during this World Cup to remind everyone that the French team knows how to play beautiful football but also knows how to wage war."
Joe Hart slams Paraguay's 'disgraceful' approach
Former England goalkeeper Joe Hart praised Mbappe's handling of the match but criticised Paraguay's tactics. "I absolutely love how [Mbappe] he's behaved in this game, because they have come for him from minute one," Hart said. "And towards the end when he was just laughing at the Paraguayan players, that is... He's allowed to be arrogant because he is brilliant, but 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 in any of the circumstances. The fact that not one Paraguayan was booked inside the 90 minutes today is absolutely astonishing. Fair play to France, you can see what it means. Sometimes you can play beautiful football, pass people off the park - but when you grind out a win as a team and get that win as they did tonight? Superb."
