There is a version of this weekend in which Saturday night in Miami is the World Cup final. A week ago, plenty of people had it drawn that way. France had scored 16 and conceded two across six matches and were the bookmakers’ pick to lift the trophy. England had navigated the top half of the draw and were favourites in their semi-final. Then both were beaten inside 24 hours of each other, and now they meet in a fixture FIFA has quietly rebranded the bronze final, in a stadium neither of them wanted to be in on this particular night.
Thomas Tuchel hasn’t insulted anyone’s intelligence about it. Asked this week how his squad felt, the England manager said flatly that none of his players and none of the French players want to play this match. They wanted the final. Didier Deschamps took the other line in public: there is a third place on the table, and France will go and take it.
Both men are telling the truth. Tuchel is describing the mood in the room; Deschamps is describing the job in front of him. And underneath all the shrugging, this match has two storylines that most third-place play-offs never get near.
Deschamps says goodbye
Saturday is Didier Deschamps’ last match in charge of France.
Fourteen years. A World Cup won in Russia in 2018. A final lost on penalties in Qatar in 2022 after one of the great matches. A European Championship final in 2016 on home soil. And now an ending he never planned or wanted: a consolation game in Miami Gardens, four days after his side were shut out by Spain in Arlington without landing a meaningful punch.
France’s record in this fixture is better than most nations’. They have contested three previous third-place play-offs and won two. In 1958 they demolished West Germany 6-3, Just Fontaine scoring four of them in a tournament that still holds the record for goals in a single edition. In 1986 they beat Belgium 4-2. The exception is 1982, when they finished fourth behind Poland after the infamous Seville semi-final. It’s also only the third time in history that France have reached a World Cup semi-final and failed to reach the final — and on both previous occasions, they went home with bronze.
Deschamps will want that. Whether eleven players who thought they’d be at MetLife on Sunday want it as badly is the entire question of the match.
The Golden Boot has 90 minutes left
Here is the real reason to watch.
Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi are tied on eight goals. FIFA’s rules break that tie on assists — and Messi has four to Mbappé’s three. So Mbappé is behind, he plays on Saturday, and Messi plays on Sunday. To win the Golden Boot, Mbappé has to score in Miami to go clear, and then hope that the one player on earth least likely to disappear in a final does exactly that.
He plays this match, in other words, with a personal target and a 24-hour head start. That is not nothing.
The numbers he has already put up this summer are close to absurd. Mbappé now has 20 career World Cup goals, moving him past Miroslav Klose into second on the all-time men’s list. His 12 knockout-stage goals are more than any player in the tournament’s history — a record he keeps extending every time he plays. And he is the first man ever to score eight goals at two separate World Cups, having done it in Qatar and repeated it here.
Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham sit on six apiece. The arithmetic keeps them alive. Reality does not: both would need something close to a hat-trick, and both are rest candidates.
The rivalry: Al Khor, 2022
These two met at the last World Cup and it has not stopped being relevant.
France beat England 2-1 in the Qatar quarter-final at Al Bayt Stadium. Aurélien Tchouaméni struck from 25 yards on 17 minutes. Kane levelled from the spot on 54 — a penalty that took him level with Wayne Rooney’s England scoring record of 53. Olivier Giroud headed France back in front on 78. And then, six minutes from time, with Theo Hernandez having barged into Mason Mount and VAR having sent the referee to the monitor, Kane put his second penalty of the night high over the crossbar. He became the first player to score and miss a penalty in the same World Cup match since 1990.
That defeat also completed a pattern: England have lost all three of their World Cup matches against reigning champions, and all three came at the quarter-final stage — Uruguay in 1954, Brazil in 1962, France in 2022. Wednesday in Atlanta made it four against a reigning champion, and this time they didn’t even get to the quarter-finals to lose it.
Saturday, in that sense, is a rematch nobody asked for between two teams who have already had their hearts broken this week.
How they got here
France topped Group I without dropping a point: Senegal 3-1, Iraq 3-0, Norway 4-1. Sweden were beaten 3-0 in the round of 32 with a Mbappé brace. Paraguay were edged 1-0 in the last 16 on a Mbappé penalty. Morocco went 2-0 in the quarter-final, Mbappé and Ousmane Dembélé scoring either side of the hour.
Then Spain, and nothing. Lamine Yamal won a penalty on 22 minutes after Lucas Digne brought him down, Mikel Oyarzabal converted, Pedro Porro made it two on 58, and France finished the night having failed to score for the first time all tournament. Spain are the only side to have beaten them.
England know Miami Stadium well — they were here nine days ago for the quarter-final against Norway, winning 2-1 through a Bellingham brace, one in first-half stoppage time and one in extra time. Tuchel’s own assessment of that night was that England had been lucky and sloppy.
Then Atlanta. Anthony Gordon put England ahead on 55 minutes and they were ten minutes from a first World Cup final since 1966. Enzo Fernández hit one from outside the box on 85. Lautaro Martínez headed in on 92. Lionel Scaloni’s summary afterwards was that Argentina had smelt blood and gone for it — a pointed reference to England’s retreat after the second-half hydration break, which is now the central charge on Tuchel’s own charge sheet.
Team news
France. William Saliba is out after suffering a back injury against Spain, with Maxence Lacroix expected to step in alongside Dayot Upamecano — though Ibrahima Konaté is also in the frame. Lucas Digne, whose foul gave away the penalty that opened the semi-final, is likely to make way for Theo Hernandez. Manu Koné is pushing hard for a start in a fresher midfield, with Warren Zaïre-Emery also in contention. Rayan Cherki and Désiré Doué are both expected to feature in the attacking line. Otherwise Deschamps has a fit squad, and Mbappé wants to start for reasons that require no explanation.
England. Messier. Reece James was forced off late against Argentina with a suspected muscular problem and is a major doubt, which would push Djed Spence to right-back and Nico O’Reilly to the left. Jordan Henderson is out with a wrist injury. Jarell Quansah returns from suspension to bolster the defence. Declan Rice has been struggling with fatigue and may be rested, which could hand Kobbie Mainoo his first minutes of the tournament alongside Elliot Anderson. Kane has barely had a break all summer and may give way to Ollie Watkins; Bellingham has run himself into the ground trying to drag England to a final and is a candidate to sit; Tuchel may not want to risk Bukayo Saka at all.
Predicted XIs France (4-2-3-1): Maignan; Koundé, Upamecano, Lacroix, T. Hernandez; Rabiot, Koné; Dembélé, Cherki, Doué; Mbappé England (4-2-3-1): Pickford; Spence, Guehi, Konsa, O’Reilly; Mainoo, Anderson; Rogers, Eze, Rashford; Watkins
What actually happens in a game like this
Bronze finals are where tactics go to die, and the reason is structural rather than moral. Both managers rotate. Rotation means unfamiliar defensive pairings and midfields that haven’t played together. Fringe players who have spent six weeks on a bench want to be seen, which means they take risks the first-choice XI wouldn’t. Nobody presses for 90 minutes in a match with no consequence. And the pressing is what has kept the scores down all tournament.
Add a Golden Boot race giving the best attacker on the pitch a private reason to shoot from anywhere, and you have the ingredients for an open, sloppy, entertaining football match — which is exactly what the third-place play-off usually delivers.
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The market
The market has read it the same way. Over 2.5 goals is heavily odds-on. Both teams to score is shorter still. France 2-1 is joint-shortest on the correct score board. France are favourites on the back of an extra day’s rest, a deeper squad, and one man with a trophy to chase.
The lesson is to leave the result alone. In a match with this much rotation, the outcome is close to noise. The goals aren’t.
Prediction
Two hurting squads, heavy changes on both sides, no defensive discipline worth the name, and Mbappé shooting on sight for 90 minutes. Deschamps gets his send-off. Mbappé gets his goal and hands the Golden Boot question to Messi. England’s rotated attack finds something late.
Call: France 2-1.
Suggested markets: Over 2.5 Goals · Both Teams to Score · Mbappé Anytime Scorer · Mbappé Golden Boot · France to Finish Third
