France’s Want Doue, Kylian Mbappe and teammates have a good time after their 1-0 victory over Paraguay within the Fifa World Cup 2026 Spherical of 16 match at Philadelphia Stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, on July 4, 2026. — ReutersMbappe attracts stage with Messi in Golden Boot race.France arrange quarter-final showdown towards Morocco.Doue wins decisive penalty after substitute look.
Kylian Mbappe transformed from the spot within the seventieth minute for his nineteenth profession World Cup purpose and seventh of this match as France outlasted Paraguay to succeed in the quarterfinals with a 1-0 victory on Saturday in a steamy spherical of 16 encounter.
With the penalty, earned by substitute Want Doue’s slaloming run into the realm, Mbappe pulled even with Argentina’s Lionel Messi atop the 2026 Golden Boot leaderboard and moved inside one of many 39-year-old for the all-time World Cup objectives lead.
It was all Les Bleus wanted towards a resilient however restricted Albirroja aspect, who provided little going ahead, however defended admirably and tried to bait their foes into off-the-ball fight in sweltering situations with temperatures nearing 100 Fahrenheit.
“We knew what kind of match we were going to have,” Mbappe stated through an interpreter. “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.”
France advance to fulfill Morocco subsequent Thursday in Foxborough, Mass., in a rematch of the 2022 semifinal that resulted in a 2-0 French victory.
France’s Michael Olise and Kylian Mbappe have a good time after the match. — Reuters
Paraguay shocked Germany on penalties following a 1-1 draw within the spherical of 32 on Monday, a end result that impressed president Santiago Pena to declare Tuesday a nationwide vacation.
However the Albirroja nonetheless exited a spherical shy of their all-time greatest quarterfinal end in 2010, which doubled as their final World Cup finals look.
The South Individuals pissed off the two-time World Champions all through the primary half and nicely into the second, aided partly by the card-shy strategy of Uzbek referee Ilgiz Tantashev. When he did attain for his pocket, it was puzzling for 3 French offenders despite the fact that Paraguay led 12-9 in fouls.
“It wasn’t easy. They used every trick in the book,” France supervisor Didier Deschamps stated through an interpreter. “It is not the kind of football that will bring people to the stadium, but they defended well. It is always difficult against these South American teams.
“I requested the 2 largest lads to go and stand round Kylian on the finish as a result of they have been going to cut him down.”
But Paraguay had no solution for the injection of energy Doue brought after Deschamps inserted him in the 61st minute for Bradley Barcola.
Moments after Tantashev waved off appeals for a foul on Mbappe just outside the box, Doue’s excellent incisive dribbling in from the left forced an awkward challenge from the left leg of Diego Gomez that required the referee to make another decision.
Initially he reached the same conclusion and held his whistle, only to be summoned to the replay monitor by his VAR lead Juan Lara. Eventually he saw Gomez’s clear foul.
After some delaying tactics by Paraguay on the spot, Mbappe neatly converted into the bottom right corner as goalkeeper Orlando Gill guessed in the opposite direction.
Clearly fatigued by the conditions and their 120-minute effort against the Germans, Paraguay tried at last to get numbers forward. Substitute Mauricio mustered their first effort on target in the 90th minute.
But it was France who looked more likely to add another goal, with Gill doing well to deny Mbappe a brace with one stop in the 89th minute and two more in the sixth minute of second-half stoppage time.
“Paraguay is leaving with our heads held excessive,” Gill said. “I consider with out the penalty we may have carried out it. We did very nicely within the first half, we have been avoiding the entire throughballs. It was unlucky there was a penalty, however soccer is like this.”
