France captain Kylian Mbappe refused to shake hands with Paraguay goalkeeper Orlando Gill following an intense match in the Round of 16 at the FIFA World Cup. France prevailed 1–0 and qualified for the quarterfinals, courtesy of a goal by Mbappe. Paraguay deliberately adopted a very physical and disruptive style of play to stop France from finding any rhythm, resulting in confrontations and heated moments on the field.
After the game ended, the Paraguay goalkeeper offered a handshake to Mbappe, but the star footballer continued to celebrate.
Mbappe celebrating in front of Paraguay goalie and aired his handshake😭😭😭😭😭😭https://t.co/HXXFlubILw
— fan 🇵🇹 (@NoodleHairCR7) July 4, 2026
Meanwhile, another video that went viral on social media showed the goalkeeper hitting Mbappe with the ball after he refused to shake hands with him.
Threw the ball at Mbappe when he rightfully refused to shake hands with him. Paraguay is the most disgraceful team I’ve ever seen pic.twitter.com/YSqujIxlbY
— – (@MusialaEra) July 5, 2026
Following the hard-fought win, Mbappe said that che an play attractive football, but can also win by getting their hands dirty.
“I tried to shake his hand, but since he didn’t pay me any attention, I lost my temper,” Gill said. “But anyway, that was all I did; I calmed down afterwards.”
“I think we knew what kind of match we were going to have, but I think today it’s very good. The match we had, how we played it. We showed that we weren’t just a team that knew how to play offensive football. If we have to get our hands dirty, we’re going to get our hands dirty, sorry for the expression. We don’t have a problem with that.”
He added, “They thought we were going to come playing in tuxedos, that we were just going to come and do beautiful moves, one-twos. We know how to play dirty football, too. And we did it today, we won, and even in that, we were better than them.”
