Paraguayan national coach Gustavo Alfaro said his team «fought like lions» in the 1-0 World Cup defeat to France on Saturday.
“France couldn’t find the answers and it took some individual skill and a VAR penalty to make the difference, which their football couldn’t have done,” Alfaro said after the match at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.
Kylian Mbappe’s 70th-minute penalty finally broke the deadlock in the last-16 tie and put France through to the quarter-final against Morocco, while Paraguay went home.
The South American country was participating in the World Cup for the first time since 2010 and had hoped to equal the quarter-finals of that tournament, which is still its best ever result.
The tactics the country used to upset its opponents irked France striker Kylian Mbappe, while coach Didier Deschamps accused Paraguay of leveling verbal insults.
But Alfaro insisted his men had “fought like lions in the field”.
He added: “It took us 16 years to return to a World Cup, while Mbappe won the World Cup the first time he played in it, reached the final in his second and is now fighting to become the top scorer.”
It remains the case that Paraguay’s only victories in the World Cup knockout stages have come in penalty shootouts, including against Germany in Boston in the last 32.
“We worked so hard to get a different result, but I leave here knowing that we came to compete, and we did,” added Alfaro, who added that his team sat in the locker room in tears of disappointment after the match.
“I have no doubt that this World Cup has made us all better, although I am sad to go out as I hoped we would progress further.”
Published on July 5, 2026
