BEIJING: Paraguay’s antics in their World Cup defeat to France had Chinese fans wishing that referee Ma Ning had been in charge.
The South Americans appeared more intent on kicking their French opponents than trying to score during the last 16 encounter in Philadelphia on Saturday (July 4).
A Kylian Mbappe penalty 20 minutes from time was enough to see France through to a quarter-final clash with Morocco, and in the absence of any real excitement on the field, it was the performance of the Paraguayans, and Uzbekistan referee Ilgiz Tantashev, that drew most attention among Chinese fans.
While Ma is known as the “card master” by supporters, Tantashev handed out just four – three of them to France – in a game littered with niggly fouls and dirty tackles.
“If Ma Ning was officiating the match, I guess Paraguay would only have their goalkeeper left in the match,” said one commenter.
“Mbappe, now you know how good Ma Ning is as a referee, right?” replied another.
Tantashev’s display was rated “very low standard” by fans, and while some said South American teams always played dirty, others accused Tantashev, who has been a Fifa referee since 2013, of being on “a mission... to take France out”.
“He was almost wearing a Paraguay jersey today,” one commenter said, while another referenced the side’s win over Germany in the previous round.
“Now it seems the German team was too weak, and Paraguay didn’t even need to foul,” the commenter added.
“The fact that the focus of a match is entirely on the referee shows how poorly the referee is performing his job,” a Weibo user said.
Mbappe came in for most of Paraguay’s attention, but kept his cool and said he and his team had known “what kind of match it was going to be”.
“We can also get our hands dirty,” the French captain said. “We know how to do it. We know how to play ugly football.
“If we have to get our hands dirty, we will get our hands dirty. We have no issue with that. Guess they were thinking we were going to show up in tuxedos, but we were ready. Even at that kind of game, we were better than them.”
France coach Didier Deschamps revealed there were dirty scenes on the sidelines too.
“They pull out every trick in the book,” the 57-year-old former World Cup winner said. “It’s not the kind of football that draws people to the stadium. Each team played the way they wanted. But there were insults from the other bench that I could do without.”
Paraguay goalkeeper Orlando Gill was seen throwing a ball at Mbappe’s back after the French forward ignored him at the final whistle. Afterwards Gill put it down to the heat of the moment, but Chinese social media users did not buy that.
“They didn’t only lose the match, but also their characters, acting just like children,” one commenter said. - South China Morning Post Sport
