Joe Hart called the Paraguay players “an absolute disgrace” for how they played during their World Cup round of 16 defeat to to France. The former England goalkeeper believes they pushed the boundaries too far with their conduct and were caught up in the emotion of the ocassion.
One moment that particularly irked the BBC pundit was when Gustavo Velazquez deliberately scuffed up the penalty spot before Kylian Mbappe was due to step up from 12 yards. Despite the disruption, which included multiple Paraguay players delaying the taking for as long as possible, the Real Madrid man stepped up and scored the game’s only goal.
After watching back replays of the incident, Hart said: “If I’m [Paraguay goalkeeper Orlando] Gill, I don’t care if that’s my own player; I’m ripping his shirt off his back. That is not how I want to play the game. Disgusting. I’m so glad [Mbappe] sat [Gill] down and slotted [it past] him.”
The long-time Manchester City player heaped praise on Mbappe. “I absolutely love how [Mbappe] has behaved in this game, because they have come for him from minute one. And towards the end, when he was just laughing at the Paraguayan players, that is… He’s allowed to be arrogant because he is brilliant.
“But the Paraguayan players were an absolute disgrace tonight. If they were on my team, I’d be dragging half of them off the pitch. I would never want to win that way, I would never want to play football that way.
“And the referee didn’t help in any of the circumstances. The fact that not one Paraguayan was booked inside the 90 minutes today is absolutely astonishing.”
Hart concluded: “They’ve been caught up in the emotion tonight, no doubt about it. They’ve probably made a pact before the game, ‘whatever it takes, we’re going to get through this game’. But they’ve gone way too far. But the referee could have put the lid on that. A modern-day referee could have, early on, two or three occasions, stopped any of that. But he’s let it go. And Paraguay were always going to push the boundaries.”
His fellow pundit Thomas Hitzlsperger concurred. “I had a lot of respect for [Paraguay] going into the game. I’m glad my vocabulary in English is not that good, because Joe just said ‘disgraceful’ – I’ve got various other words I would use for them in German, but I don’t have them in English.
“Because I have little to no respect anymore for this Paraguay team, the way they behaved on the penalty incident. If you’re from Paraguay, you probably like that team: they’re like warriors. If you’re a supporter of the French team or neutral, you can’t have any respect anymore for the way they behaved.
“This is not just disgraceful; this is even worse. That’s why I totally agree, the way Kylian Mbappe and the entire team have controlled themselves – that they don’t walk off the pitch injured, to me is almost a miracle. And the referee, to finish this off, it’s probably the worst performance I’ve seen in this tournament.”