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It Was a Little Lame that the 4th of July Game at “Philadelphia Stadium” Featured Paraguay Playing Terrorist Anti-Soccer

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Jul 6th, 2026 · 10:55 AM EDT

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France beat Paraguay 1-0 in South Philadelphia on Independence Day to wrap up a series of local World Cup games that seemed to go well. We hosted the likes of Ecuador, Ivory Coast, France, Iraq, Croatia, Curacao, Ghana, Haiti, and Brazil with no significant complaints. SEPTA ran smoothly. The visitors enjoyed the city, other than two rotund Croatian complainers (more on them in a separate post), and overall the city showed that it’s more than capable of handling large, international events, which we already knew. But it’s good to have that reinforced, to show people on an international stage that we can do it just as good as anybody and know how to welcome people to the region.

The only thing that was a little annoying was that the 4th of July game turned out to be a dud, with Paraguay playing petulant anti-soccer and sitting back while being physical and fouling and chirping and trying to frustrate a superior France team. In a sense, it was a decent strategy, since they were outgunned in the talent department, but it made for a poor viewing experience and they were ripped for their approach:

Paraguay, congratulations for being the first underdogs to be hated by the viewers.. Bunch of pricks.

— Sxnti (@PeakSxnti) July 4, 2026

Paraguay received one yellow card vs. France.

……and that was after the final whistle 😐 pic.twitter.com/70wKESVWDg

— B/R Football (@brfootball) July 4, 2026

pic.twitter.com/lekyL9j8pJ

— Sure Boy (@Smallzzzzzzy) July 5, 2026

You know who deserves the most blame for this?

The Germans.

They should have handled Paraguay in the Round of 32, and set up a Germany/France showdown in South Philly on America’s 250th birthday. That would have made for a great game, and a really nice way to cap off Philadelphia’s participation in the tournament. Instead, they choked, so we got Paraguay bums trying to get inside Kylian Mbappe’s head and make the French team lose their cool. Not exactly an instant classic, but the French made it through, and they deserved to win. Plus, they helped us beat England in the Revolutionary War, so of course we had to back the Frenchies to win this game on Independence Day.

France to the quarterfinals, Paraguay to the tarmac. Allez les Bleus!