Paraguay goalkeeper accuses Kylian Mbappé of 'disrespectful' act after France World Cup clash

Paraguay goalkeeper Orlando Gill has claimed that Kylian Mbappé performed a disrespectful act during the South Americans' World Cup round of 16 defeat to France.

At a swelteringly hot Philadelphia Stadium, Mbappé's second-half penalty was enough to send Didier Deschamps' side to the quarter-finals, where they will take on Morocco, who beat co-hosts Canada 3-0 earlier on Saturday (July 4).

Despite Deschamps fielding a star-studded attacking quartet of Mbappé, Ousmane Dembélé, Michael Olise and Bradley Barcola, the Europeans struggled to break down their opponents, who stood resolute in defence.

Once Mbappé slotted home his penalty with 20 minutes remaining, Paraguay lost their discipline, putting in a number of mistimed and overly aggressive challenges.

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This led former England goalkeeper and BBC pundit Joe Hart to say the Paraguayans had behaved disgracefully while praising Mbappé's professionalism.

"I love how Mbappé has behaved in this game," Hart said.

"The Paraguay players have come for him from minute one. When he was laughing at the players, he was allowed to be arrogant, but the Paraguay 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 and I would never want to play football that way. The referee didn't help in any circumstances. The fact that not one Paraguayan was booked inside the 90 minutes is astonishing."

His fellow pundit and former Germany international Thomas Hitzlsperger went a step further, saying he had "little to no respect" for Paraguay because of the way they "behaved".

The former Aston Villa and Everton midfielder said: "If you are from Paraguay, you probably like the team. They are like 'warriors' – if you are French or neutral, you can have no respect for them any more. This is not just disgraceful, this is even worse."

Somehow, despite Gustavo Velázquez scuffing the penalty spot before Mbappé's spot-kick, Matías Galarza putting his hand on Jules Koundé's face, Andrés Cubas smashing into Adrien Rabiot, and Juan José Cáceres kicking out at Mbappé, referee Ilgiz Tantashev did not book a single Paraguay player.

Meanwhile, Manu Koné, Barcola and Olise received cautions from the Uzbek official.

Mbappe 'refused' to shake Gill's hand

Despite Paraguay’s best efforts to wind Mbappé up, the Real Madrid forward kept his cool but seemingly got his own back by refusing to shake Paraguay goalkeeper Gill's hand shortly after the final whistle.

The 27-year-old began celebrating once the whistle sounded while Gill attempted to shake his hand. However, the France forward continued screaming in celebration, prompting the goalkeeper to throw the ball at him, which he ignored.

Speaking about the incident after the match, Gill told reporters: "This is soccer. I gave him my hand to congratulate him, but he ignored me.

"Obviously I entered a heated moment, but that's all I did. After that I calmed down. I just wanted to congratulate them.

"The truth is they've had an excellent campaign as they're candidates to be world champions."

Mbappé also offered his thoughts on what he described as Paraguay's "ugly" tactics.

"We knew what kind of match we were going to have," he said. "We can also get our hands dirty, we know how to do it. We know how to play ugly football. Guess they were thinking we were going to show up in tuxedos, but we were ready."

France take on Morocco at Boston Stadium on July 9.