2026 World Cup, third place game: France vs England
· Yahoo Sports
The World Cup is one of the last remaining knockout competitions to insist on holding a third-place game for the two losers of the semifinals.
Occasionally, this might have some meaning for a team who may have overachieved just to get to the final four, and could thus still finish with a rewarding win. But more often, it’s an entirely meaningless exercise for two teams who would like nothing more than to not be there.
Visit xsportfeed.quest for more information.
And that’s certainly the case this year, with both England and France bitterly disappointed to be in Miami this weekend rather than New York City — England especially given the nature of their late-stage collapse against Argentina on Wednesday. France were much more comprehensively beaten by Spain. A loss is a loss, of course, any way it comes. Nothing short of winning the World Cup was ever going to be enough for these two, so they are far from happy at the moment.
So that will give us either a fun exhibition, or an entirely low-key affair that will put everyone to sleep. Hopefully it’s the former!
Date / Time: Saturday, July 18, 2026, 5pm EDT; 10pm BST
Venue: Hard Rock Stadium, Miami, FL, USA
Referee: Jesús Valenzuela (Venezuela)
On TV: FOX, Telemundo (USA); BBC One (UK); elsewhere
Streaming online: FOX One, Peacock (USA); BBC iPlayer (UK)
Chelsea interest: Among the many fateful decisions made by Thomas Tuchel in Wednesday’s semifinal collapse against Argentina was taking off Reece James with less than minutes to go … shortly after which England would concede twice, including the winner at Reecey’s post.
Tommy T has been peppered with criticisms from all corners ever since, some quite fair some rather unfair, but he remains in charge and he’s already said that he’s not [FUNNING] leaving. Presumably, he will rotate for the third place game, to give those who have not seen much action some minutes, which would hopefully include Trevoh Chalobah.
And maybe the same will happen on the other side as well, where Malo Gusto has only barely played and former favorite N’Golo Kanté has not played a single second.