France beat Sweden by hat-trick to face Paraguay in World Cup quarter-finals

France qualified for the quarter-finals of the 2026 World Cup, after beating Sweden 30-30 on Tuesday at the MetLife Stadium in New York.

In the quarter-finals, the French national team will face its counterpart Paraguay, which qualified at the expense of Germany on penalties on Monday, in one of the biggest surprises of the tournament, and the expected match will be a replay of the round of 16 in the 1998 World Cup, which witnessed a difficult qualification for France by a score of (10).

The French national team deserved to qualify after imposing its full control over the match, as the Swedish national team held out in the first minutes, and threatened the goal of the French goalkeeper Mike Manyan, before the French team raised its level of performance by relying on its attacking arsenal led by Kylian Mbappe, Ousmane Dembélé and Michael Ulise, and there were dangerous opportunities on many occasions, but the French team missed them in different ways, before Mbappe appeared in the last minutes of the first half, and scored a special goal after being silent against Norway in the third round, and he celebrated With the goal with his coach Didier Deschamps, who lost his mother a few days ago.

The French national team continued its pressure in the second half of the match, and did not back down to the defense, but was obsessed with adding the goal that guarantees it a large percentage of qualification, and indeed the star of Paris Saint-Germain, Bradley Barcola, succeeded in doubling the result, scoring the second goal in his balance in the championship, to give the French team great chances to qualify.

The second goal forced Sweden to abandon the defensive plan and try to respond to the French doublet, but without much danger, but the difference in individual abilities was clear.

Mbappe returned to find the back of the net, scoring the third goal, taking his tally to 18 World Cup goals in three appearances, and the sixth goal in this edition.

Norway beat Elephants of Côte d'Ivoire

Norway reached the round of 16 of the 2026 World Cup after beating Côte d'Ivoire 2-1 on Tuesday evening at the Dallas Stadium in Arlington.

The Norwegian national team took the lead first through Antonio Nossa in the 39th minute of the first half, investing a relative advantage in possession and spread.

The Ivorian national team waited until the 74th minute to bring the match back to the tie, when Amad Diallo scored a goal that gave the "Elephants" a morale boost in the final minutes.

However, Norway had the final say, after striker Erling Haaland appeared at the decisive moment, scoring the winning goal in the 86th minute, to confirm his decisive presence despite his limited participation in the course of the game.

With this victory, the Norwegian national team sets up a date in the round of 16 with Brazil, who also qualified after a hard-fought 2-1 victory over Japan, in a match that was also decided late in the United States stadium.

Didier Drogba attacks referee

Didier Drogba has expressed his displeasure with the refereeing decisions during Côte d'Ivoire's match against Norway in the round of 32 of the 2026 World Cup, criticizing the failure to award a penalty in favor of Nicolas Pepe.

Drogba posted an angry message on his official account on the "X" platform, in which he questioned the feasibility of the video assistant referee (VAR) technology, after ignoring the penalty count.

Drogba wrote: "It's a shame that Nicolas Pepe's penalty was not counted, what is the use of the VAR?!?!"