There's probably no reason for the World Cup third-place match to exist. Unlike the Olympics, when a coveted bronze medal is at stake, third place at the World Cup doesn't offer much to teams. By and large, these matches tend to involve mentally checked-out players mainly concerned with avoiding an injury so that they can fully relax once they get to the beaches and/or yachts they will spend the next several weeks sitting on, where they will nurse the pain from the semifinal loss and rest up ahead of another long club season. Because of that lack of stakes and interest, the quality of play in these games, especially on the defensive side, is usually at an all-star game level.
Those less-than-intense conditions are exactly what made England-France on Saturday so wonderfully stupid to watch. At the end of a hot and humid afternoon in Miami, England clinched its first-ever third-place finish at a World Cup with a scoreline of 6-4, after a match that was an orgy of offense. Defense was indeed optional and broadly eschewed by both teams, first by France for the entirety of the first half and then by England in an 18-minute French burst to start the second half.
There's no point in really analyzing the match itself. Tactics were much less important than vibes, as both sides exhibited some real attacking chops in the face of lax defending. Aside from Harry Kane, who sat out the match, all the big stars on both sides appeared on the scoresheet, either by scoring or assisting. So, instead, let's just have some fun with it and simply enjoy the 10 World Cup goals I'm thrilled we got to see. Vive la petite finale!
10. Bukayo Saka (P) - 87' - England 5-3
Since there's not much to say about Bukayo Saka's solid penalty, I will instead take this opportunity to credit Djed Spence for winning the foul leading up to the penalty with a bursting run into the box. Spence was amazing this tournament, definitely the English player who raised his stock the most.
9. Ezri Konsa - 18' - England 2-0
It's a nice wide-open header from a corner, to be sure, but given the quality of the goals elsewhere this game, I can't put this much higher.
8. Bukayo Saka - 37' - England 3-0
OK, now we're talking. The end of this play is kind of a disaster, but wow, what a pass from Bukayo Saka. His through ball sent Marcus Rashford into more open space than any Miami driver has ever seen on the Florida Turnpike. It was perfectly weighted, perfectly aimed, and Rashford's lung-busting run made up for the clunkiness when he made it into the France box. The strike was Saka's first in what ended up being the first hat trick in a third-place match since Just Fontaine's for France in 1958.
7. Kylian Mbappé - 48' - England 4-1
A confession: I missed the first half of the game while getting home from watching The Odyssey (capsule review from this Christopher Nolan skeptic: better than expected!), so I only sat down to watch in real time at the start of the second. I did walk out of the movie to a lot of "LOL France"-type messages, and I think someone must have shown the French team similar sentiments during the break, because Les Bleus came out of the break in their Saturday best. Over 18 minutes, France scored three times to turn a hilarious catastrophe into something competitive and even more hilarious.
The run started with the least impressive goal of the three, but it was still a nice one, thanks to Michael Olise's umpteenth beauty of a pass, which gave Kylian Mbappé an easy open-body finish to the far post. The pass gave Olise—for my money France's most important pressure point this tournament (his disappearance against Spain, thanks to the Spanish marking him out of the game, was the key factor in that game)—his sixth assist of this tournament, tying Pelé's record from 1970.
6. Declan Rice - 3' - England 1-0
A match with 10 goals still needs an opener, and though Declan Rice was a bit of a disappointment this World Cup (a reported illness surely didn't help), he got things started on an emblematically strong note. Rice intercepted a French pass near midfield, and though this goal probably only existed because of the aforementioned all-star-game defending, the finish to the far post left Maignan rooted, making for a lovely little goal.
5. Bukayo Saka - 45+1' - England 4-0
Saka's finish is fine, nice even, but this goal ranks so highly because of Eberechi Eze. Saka's Arsenal teammate received the ball far from goal and with his back to it, but the turn and subsequent pass to give Saka enough room to score was just delightful.
4. Ousmane Dembélé - 90+1' - England 5-4
Once it became clear in the second half that France was going to fight to come back, I started to pray for extra time, just for the chance to see how silly the scoreline could get once the defenders were both disinterested and tired. Saka's penalty in the 87th, and the two-goal lead it restored, appeared to kill those hopes, but France had one more something for me. Ousmane Dembélé is the reigning Ballon d'Or winner but he was probably the quietest of France's big three this summer, even with a hat trick against Norway's backups in the group-stage finale. I'm glad he got another memorable moment in the dying embers of Saturday's match, when Dayot Upamecano stepped up to intercept an English pass, hit a great through ball to Dembélé, and watched as his decorated teammate left Trevoh Chalobah in the damn dirt for a classic Dembélé curler.
3. Bradley Barcola - 54' - England 4-2
Mbappé isn't known for his passing, and why should he be when he is so fast and so skilled and so deadly in front of goal? But the pass to put Bradley Barcola through on goal in the 54th minute was Olise-esque. It sliced through the England backline and gave Barcola just enough space to get ahead of Jarell Quansah, block the defender off with his body while moving right, then hook a shot back across to his left. Fantastic stuff from the best attacking team of the tournament.
2. Jude Bellingham - 90+8' - England 6-4
After Dembélé's stoppage-time goal, I started to get bloodlust. I wanted one more French goal to give us 30 more minutes of this madness. I was screaming at my television whenever France had the ball, urging the French on for a ludicrous 5-5 equalizer. It was not meant to be, though, because England's best player this tournament had come onto the field in the 79th minute. Jude Bellingham had a hell of a World Cup, coming up with crucial goals against both Mexico and Norway, as well as a crucial clearance against the former at the Estadio Azteca. It would have been a disappointment if Bellingham didn't get one more goal to make him England's top scorer ever at a single World Cup, and if there's one thing Bellingham hasn't provided this tournament, it's disappointment.
The goal did what it says on the tin, so to speak: Bellingham latched on to a ball at midfield, and just motored his way into the box before faking a shot with his left, cutting to his right, hesitating juuuust long enough to open the goal up entirely, and then coolly slotting into the bottom right corner. It was a highlight moment for a highlight player, and though I still would have preferred extra time, it was a fitting capper to these madcap proceedings.
1. Kylian Mbappé - 66' - England 4-3
France's entire World Cup argument was based on the quality of its attack. Sure, the defense could be solid or even excellent on its day, and the midfield double pivot did its job more often than not—the semifinal against Spain being the notable exception—but let's be serious: France was always going to go as far as Mbappé, Olise, Dembélé, Barcola, and Désiré Doué would take it. It's fitting then that the best goal on Saturday involved three of those five, and the best three at that.
With the ball out on the right wing, Dembélé spotted both Olise and Mbappé in the center and aimed a pass at both of them. Olise dummied the ball, letting it go through his legs to Mbappé. Mbappé then hit a a little one-two pass to Olise, who drew the English defense to him with his run. Olise quickly tapped the ball back to Mbappé, who did the rest, taking one touch to get a last bit of space then zipping the ball into the back of the net, throwing himself into first place for both the Golden Boot and the all-time World Cup goalscoring leaderboard. (The assist also gave OIise sole possession of the single World Cup assists record, with seven.) You could argue that third-place match goals shouldn't count for either of those, and I wouldn't argue too strongly against it, but there is no argument that, on a day with 10 goals ranging from "a penalty" to "so good it reminds me why I love this sport," France's third stands alone as the best of the best.
