Ten goals, one afternoon in Miami
England took the World Cup bronze with a 6-4 win over France at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, a match that lurched about so violently it hardly felt like a single game. Four goals up at the interval. Then very nearly none of it mattered. France finished fourth, and Didier Deschamps walked the touchline for the last time as their head coach.
Both sides came in as beaten semi-finalists, playing only for the consolation of a medal. England took theirs the hard way.
For 45 minutes it was a rout, and a one-sided one at that. Declan Rice opened the scoring inside three minutes. Ezri Konsa headed a second on 18. Bukayo Saka then struck twice before the break, on 37 and again in first-half stoppage time, and at 4-0 England looked home and dry. France, ragged and second to everything, could not get near them.
France roar back
They were nothing of the sort after the restart. Kylian Mbappe pulled one back three minutes into the half, Bradley Barcola made it 4-2 on 54, and when Mbappe struck again on 66 the whole afternoon had turned. 4-3, half an hour left, and England suddenly clinging on to a lead that had looked untouchable at the break. For 20 minutes the bronze was anyone's.
The fightback, for all its noise, ran out of road. Saka completed his hat-trick from the penalty spot in the 87th minute, cool from twelve yards, to nudge England back two clear at 5-3. Saka was the outstanding player on the pitch, his treble the spine of the win. Ousmane Dembele, with his sixth of the tournament, gave France a final flicker deep in added time on 90+6. But Jude Bellingham had the last word two minutes later, on 90+8, to seal the 6-4 and the medal. His goal took him to seven for the World Cup, per FIFA.
What the day settled, and what it did not
Bronze was not the only thing on the line. Mbappe's double moved him to 10 goals and clear at the top of the Golden Boot race, per FIFA's tournament figures. He had started the day on eight, level near the summit. He left it out on his own.
That leaves Lionel Messi with a simple sum to do tonight. Messi sits second on eight and faces Spain with Argentina in the final at MetLife Stadium (kick-off 15:00 ET). To overhaul Mbappe he needs at least two goals: a 10-10 finish would fall Messi's way on the assists tie-breaker, four to three, per ESPN. One will not do it. Mbappe, in other words, has done his part; the rest is out of his hands. Erling Haaland, stuck on seven and long since eliminated, can only watch. Harry Kane, who failed to score here, stays on six.
For France, the numbers were thin comfort. Deschamps signed off in fourth, his side having shipped six in a game they twice looked like stealing. Al Jazeera reported the match as his farewell in the dugout.
England will take the medal and the manner of it: 4-0 up, almost undone, and composed enough at the death to finish the job. For a fixture nobody truly wants to play in, it was quite a way to bow out. The gold is settled tonight in New Jersey, and so, most likely, is the Golden Boot.
Sources
- ESPN
- FIFA
- Al Jazeera
- Cover photo: Russian Presidential Press and Information Office / CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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