Joe Hart called Paraguay’s performance in their World Cup round of 16 defeat to France an “absolute disgrace”. The former England goalkeeper believes their actions went too far and they got caught up in the emotion of the incident.
The moment that particularly irritated BBC pundits was when Gustavo Velasquez deliberately scraped the penalty spot before Kylian Mbappe stepped up from 12 yards remaining. Despite the chaos, with multiple Paraguayan players delaying the game for as long as possible, the Real Madrid man stepped up and scored the only goal of the game.
After reviewing replays of the incident, Hart said: “If I’m (Paraguay goalkeeper Orlando) Gil, I don’t care if it’s my player or not, I’m ripping his shirt off his back. That’s not the way I want to play a game. It’s disgusting. I’m glad (Mbappé) sat down and put it on (Gill) and (got away with it).”
The long-time Manchester City player praised Mbappe. “I really love the way[Mbappe]behaved in this game, because they were targeting him from the beginning. And then towards the end, when he’s just laughing at the Paraguayan players, you know… he’s allowed to be arrogant because he’s good.”
“But the Paraguayan players tonight were a real shame. If they were in my team, I would drag half of them off the pitch. I never want to win like that, I never want to play football like that.”
“And the referee was not helpful in any situation. The fact that not a single Paraguayan player was booked in 90 minutes today is absolutely amazing.”
Hart concluded: “They were caught up in emotion tonight, that’s for sure. They probably swore before the game that they were going to get through this game no matter what. But they went too far. But the referee could have put a lid on it. A modern referee could have stopped it a couple of times early on, but he missed it. And Paraguay were always trying to push the limits.”
His fellow critic Thomas Hitzlsperger agreed. “I had a lot of respect for[Paraguay]going into the game. I’m glad my English vocabulary isn’t that great, because Joe just said ‘shameful’. There are other words for that in German, but we don’t have them in English.”
“Because I have little respect for this Paraguayan team anymore, for the way they behave in terms of penalties. If you are from Paraguay, you probably like that team. They are like warriors. If you are a supporter of the French team or are neutral, you have no more respect for their behavior.”
“This is not just a disgrace, it’s worse. So I completely agree. It’s almost a miracle for me that Kylian Mbappé and the whole team controlled themselves, that they didn’t leave the pitch injured. And the referee, last but not least, it was probably the worst performance I’ve seen in this tournament.”
