A battle for the soul of football. A team that wanted to play football against a team that wanted to stop any football being played. Trying to go toe to toe with the tournament favourites is never going to be a good plan, but Paraguay’s approach in this game was genuinely appalling. They used every dirty trick in the book, from diving, to accusing our players of diving, tackles off the ball, high tackles, time wasting… you name it. They tried everything and the ref bought it every time, like the sucker he was. Except when Doué was scythed down in the box and the ref actually gave the penalty. Amazing. And that was that. France the winners, football the winner, and that horrible gang of nihilists sent packing. Imagine watching them every game, that’d be fucking graft.