France knock out Argentina as Mateta wins Olympic football grudge match
Men’s quarter-final: France 1-0 ArgentinaJean-Philippe Mateta’s header puts hosts into semi-finalLatest medal table | Live Paris schedule | Full results
If France had a point to make it was hammered home resoundingly and lapped up joyfully by a raucous audience who got what they came for. They had wanted to see an Argentina side put in their place and it was fitting, given the racism storm that had raged around this quarter-final, to see Jean-Philippe Mateta’s early goal secure a victory laden with meaning.
Mateta, whose father was born in Democratic Republic of the Congo, is as French as anybody. So, too, the rest of a team that covered every blade of grass on an evening whose tension ramped up in an edgy closing spell.
