France had captain Kylian Mbappé to thanks as he scored his seventh goal of the tournament to put the team ahead against a resilient Paraguay side who had the French team on edge until a 70th minute penalty.
VAR was needed to persuade referee Ilgiz Tantashev that Désiré Doué had been tripped by Gustavo Gómez, and Mbappé sent the spot-kick to the bottom-right corner with Paraguayan goalkeeper Orlando Gil diving the wrong way.
Paraguay, ranked 41st in the world, arrived after knocking out Germany in one
of the biggest shocks of the tournament in the last round, and had conceded only one goal in their last three games since conceding four against host nation the United States.
They made life difficult for the French, with Mbappé not registering a single shot until a speculative effort from 30 yards went well over the bar on 64 minutes. His next effort was his first on target as he converted from the spot. The penalty was in fact only his third touch in the opposition box and he only had one more penalty box involvement with a a shot and rebound on 96 minutes. That reflected a game in which France produced 1.36 xG, their lowest xG in a competitive fixture since a 3-1 UEFA Nations League loss to Italy in September 2024 19 competitive games ago.
In a heated affair, Mbappé was targeted by Paraguayan defenders, veteran Gustavo Velázquez proving to be the most physical as he swung a boot in his direction after a tackle, going unpunished. Despite the attention from his opponents, Mbappé was only awarded two free-kicks and was visibly laughing with his rough man-markers by the time the game was coming to a close in injury time.
However, his goal means that France are through and he is back on level pegging with Argentina star Lionel Messi in the race for the golden boot with seven goals each.
Mbappé was the only one of three Real Madrid players in the squad to start, as Didier Deschamps opted to bring in Roma’s Kouadio Koné in place of Aurélien Tchouameni in midfield as he was not risked due to a minor thigh injury. New signing Ibrahima Konaté remained on the bench, with the defender having played 14 minutes of the competition so far.
France are now into the quarter-final stage, where they will face Morocco in Boston on Thursday. The winner of that game then faces a semi-final against the victor of a quarter-final which will be played between either Spain or Portugal and one of the United States or Belgium.
