Far below Philadelphia’s City Hall, boarding the subways on their return from the Lincoln Financial Field, were fans with names on their shirts. Those of Leroy Sane, Jamal Musiala and Joshua Kimmich, the players they hoped to see on 4 July. They had bought their tickets in the hope of a different match. France did not get the game they wanted, either, and not merely because a World Cup win over Germany would have been something to savour.
One with Paraguay was more one to endure than enjoy. There were parties elsewhere in Philadelphia, marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. This was something different: Nigglefest 2026. It was an exhibition of off-the-ball fouls, collapsing to the turf and scuffing up the penalty spot. It was designed to delay, to provoke.
It was, according to interpretation, either disgraceful, mildly irritating or a justified way of trying to stop a superior opponent. If Sweden could be accused of being too accommodating when they lost to France, the same charge could not be levelled at Paraguay. Every other opponent had conceded at least three times to the tournament favourites. Paraguay only let in one goal, and a penalty at that. But was that due to their underhand tactics or the genuinely excellent defending that surrounded it, but which will garner less attention?
Gustavo Alfaro, the Paraguay coach, said his side “fought like lions”. Some of the tactics were scarcely those associated with the king of the jungle. Officially, though, they fought clean. That Paraguay only committed 13 fouls was laughable; for the first time in 28 years, they completed a World Cup game without getting as much as a booking, which could suggest their behaviour was immaculate. Instead, it said rather more about the frankly bizarre performance of Ilgiz Tantashev, the Uzbek referee, who seemed incapable of recognising Paraguayan wrongdoing.
That said, it was scarcely the battle of Philadelphia and more an extended exercise in s**thousery. There was a pettiness to much of it, a streetwise nature to parts of it. There were offences that stopped short of being deemed violent conduct. There were others designed to induce a violent reaction from France.
“I am really proud the entire team kept its cool. If we did respond to provocation it could have been bad,” said manager Didier Deschamps. Instead, there was some Gallic disdain at some of Paraguay’s tricks. Kylian Mbappe laughed at the wind-up merchant Matias Galarza. After the final whistle, goalkeeper Orlando Gill tossed the ball at Mbappe’s back. “I asked the two biggest guys to go and surround Kylian at the end, because they were going to hack him down,” added Deschamps.
Instead, the French captain was the match-winner and could relish the style of victory. “We know how to play ‘dirty’ football. They thought we’d show up in tuxedos, but we were ready for the fight,” Mbappe said. Rayan Cherki, another of the artists, added: “The French team knows how to go to war too.”
A grievance, though, was that Paraguay did so in unseemly fashion. “I do not want to criticise Paraguay, each team plays the way they want, but there were some insults from the other bench I could have done without,” said Deschamps. A manager who says he prefers to remain calm and collected can specialise in downplaying things; that was as outspoken as he got. “There is a bit of unfairness that we felt,” he said.
That hinted at the trio of bookings his side incurred. A curiosity of Paraguay’s campaign was that they got a red card for Miguel Almiron covering his mouth to talk to Turkey’s Mert Mulder but no yellows for their range of misdemeanours against France. Indeed, Galarza had been fortunate to avoid a sending off against Germany and went on to score in the shootout.
And goals form part of the backdrop to Paraguay’s tournament. They scored just 14 goals in 18 games in World Cup qualifying, three in five games in the competition itself. They have made a few goals go a long way.
Lacking huge attacking talents, they sought other methods of eliminating the European superpowers. The team who reached the 2010 quarter-finals did so with a diet of clean sheets. The next Paraguay side to reach a World Cup pursued a similar formula.
It did not always make for entertainment but it was understandable. Fighting spirit took them further than was logical. The issue came when the methods they adopted strayed beyond the laws and spirit of the game too often and too unapologetically.
Their responsibility was not to the neutrals, but if Paraguay won admirers with their efforts against Germany, they may have lost them with their behaviour against France. But part of the shame of it is that they cost themselves the praise their defending merited.
