Raphael Varane, France’s central defender, opened the scoring in the first half after easily losing his marker, Matías Vecino, to plant a header off Antoine Griezmann’s free kick beyond goalkeeper Fernando Muslera. Worse was to follow.

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Muslera, among a group of Uruguayan players appearing in their third World Cup, made a hash of saving a routine shot from Griezmann, and fumbled the ball into his own net. With that, Uruguay’s stay in Russia was effectively over, and the game petered out to its inevitable conclusion.

“I told all my players after the match that they can be very proud, keep their heads high,” said Óscar Tabárez, the 71-year-old coach who has transformed Uruguay’s soccer fortunes since taking charge of the team 12 years ago. “I don’t have anything bad to say against them. We all saw that it was not a very common goal, but Muslera has been a very important pillar in all our work up until now.”

In reality, France did not need to play particularly well to overcome a second South American team in the knockout stages. It didn’t, for example, require Kylian Mbappé, its 19-year-old attacking phenom, to show anywhere near the threat he did in the swashbuckling 4-3 victory over Argentina in the round of 16.

A subdued performance from Mbappé was in keeping with a generally low-key game that was played at times in an eerily quiet atmosphere that did nor reflect the prize on offer to the victor.