In a chippy affair on a warm afternoon in Philadelphia on the 4th of July, France advanced to the Quarterfinals

By Mario Amaya

Philadelphia, PA- On Saturday afternoon, on a warm summer afternoon on the United States' Independence Day, both France and Paraguay played in a very chippy affair in Philadelphia. France would walk away with a 1-0 victory against La Albirroja. 

The winning goal of the match would come in the 70th minute via a penalty kick. It all started in the 64th minute when Désiré Doué danced around several defenders inside the box; he was eventually taken down in the box by Diego Gómez. Originally, the referee, Ilgiz Tantashev, let the play go on. Tantashev was called to the VAR booth to review the play for a possible penalty on Doué. After a lengthy VAR review, the Uzbek referee determined that there was a foul inside the box by Gómez on Doué and pointed to the penalty spot. 

France’s leading goal scorer in the tournament, Kylian Mbappé, would be in charge of taking the penalty. Mbappé would nestle the ball in the far-right side of goalkeeper Orlando Gill he dove to his left. With this goal, Mbappé reached 7 goals in the World Cup and is tied with Leo Messi and Erling Haaland as top goal scorers of the tournament and also reached his 19th World Cup goal all-time. 

The game was characterized by Paraguay’s low block, where they gave France’s offense fits and kept space and goal-scoring opportunities to a formidable French offense to five shots on target. Another thing that the game was characterized for was the physical play and the number of fouls committed as 23 total fouls were committed by both teams and led to several scuffles throughout the game, and Paraguayan players went to confront the referee post-game. 

Gill was voted man of the match after making a total of 15 saves. 

France will now take on Morocco in the quarterfinals on July 9th in Boston.