France battled their way to victory against Paraguay in the World Cup round of 16. But after the match, most of the talk was about the referee.
“It was the worst performance at this World Cup,” Patrick Ittrich said bluntly on ‘Magenta TV’. Referee Ilgiz Tantashev from Uzbekistan had been “overwhelmed” by the match and let the Paraguay players get away with too many fouls.Â
Statistics from ‘The Athletic’ highlight the imbalance: the South Americans committed 13 fouls but went the entire match without a single booking. It was only after the final whistle that assistant coach Gonzalez was shown a yellow card for dissent. By comparison, Barcola, Koné, and Olise were each booked for France.
According to the data portal ‘Opta’, it was also the first time since the 1998 World Cup match against Nigeria that Paraguay did not receive a single card. Â
“That’s unbelievable,” Ittrich said on ‘Magenta TV’ with reference to that statistic. He said he had “been shaking his head the entire game” because the referee left too many fouls against Mbappé and Co. unpunished.Â
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.
