Saturday 18th July 2026 – Result –
England finish 3rd in the 2026 World Cup via a 10 goal play-off with France – well done.
Thank goodness England realised that it wasn’t realistic to hunker down and defend their 1-0 lead after Rice scored in only the 3rd minute.
In continuing to push forward it became 2-0 in the 18th via Konsa then 3-0 in the 37th via Saka and then Saka again in first minute of added time of the first half so England went into the break leading four to nothing.
But then what the beep happened?
France must have had a mid-match pep talk which fired them up to see that a four-nothing deficit not only wasn’t the end of the day, but that victory remained a possibility. Was this France just believing they were going to be the better team for the next session of play or did they suspect England had an exploitable weakness?
That wouldn’t happen to be complacency, would it? The sort which says a four goal lead is plenty and the sort which argues that it’s still OK while it turns into a three then two then one goal advantage as Mbappe in the 48th, Barcoloa in the 54th and Mbappe again in 66th score the goals that bring France back into contention for extra time or even an outright win.
Fortunately for England France decided to concede a penalty in the 87th which broke the spell England was under and which Saka converted to give him a match hat trick and set the score at 5-3.
Still France refused to stay down, coming back via Dembele in the 5th minute of time added, correcting their penalty mistake. That left England’s Jude Bellingham to emphatically tell France they’ve finished fourth in this year’s World Cup tournament with England’s 6th goal in the 7th minute of time added to a quite extraordinary third-place playoff match.
Match highlights in this quickie Fifa video, no ads, opens in a new tab. England in white and France in dark blue: https://www.fifa.com/en/watch/7tq7bBkX3Rywetdz4Z3UOn
England have bronze medals and perhaps have shown that attack not defence is the way to win games so long as the attack lasts a full 90 minutes and not just 45 and change.
And breathe!