Both these teams went into their semi-final as favourites, and both went on to lose in 90 minutes, so there will be disappointed players out there wishing they were playing in Sunday’s game, not this one.
But there’s still a bronze medal to be won here, and for the penultimate time this tournament, here is the team news, stats, trivia and the best bet for this match.
Best Bet Is to Back England to Win in 90 Minutes
The stats above suggest that either over 2.5 goals at 1.4 or both teams to score at the same price are pretty sure things. And that certainly seems to be the case. But then again, you’d be pretty confident about most 1.4 shots going on to win.
The far more interesting bet, at a far more interesting price, is that England win the match in 90 minutes.
Both teams were disappointing in their own way in the semis, and both will be feeling rather deflated at having to play this match rather than the final, especially after both went into their semi-final games as favourites.
The managers may decide to give a few underused players some more game time, so there may be some changes, but even if there are, both teams will be taking it seriously. Especially players like Mbappe and Harry Kane, who will be looking to add to their goal tally as they’re still very much in contention to be Golden Boot winners.
So with so little to choose between them, it makes plenty of sense to go with the team available at the far higher price, and that’s England. And it certainly doesn’t make sense to go for a draw or either team to win in extra time or penalties; none of the last nine of these matches ended in a 90-minute draw.
- Prediction: England wins (regular time)
- Odds: 3.9 (at the time of writing)
- Key stat: Historically, this has been a high-scoring match, as teams tend to relax a bit and be more attacking, knowing there’s far less at stake than if it were the final. As a result, eight of the last 10 third/fourth place playoffs ended with over 2.5 goals and four of them with over 3.5 goals. Curiously, both the 2002 editions and the 2010 editions finished 3-2.
France
France chose a bad time to put in what was by far their weakest performance of the World Cup. They were lacking energy in midfield, disorganised at the back, and showed a lack of intent when it came to going forward.
The same front four that had terrorised defences all tournament went AWOL, with star man Kylian Mbappe limited to just three shots, none of which were on target.
Left-back Lucas Digne will be blamed for giving away a soft and unnecessary penalty for the first goal, while the two centre-backs failed to pick up the run of Pedro Porro for the second.
But it wasn't just one or two players who let the side down; no one played to the standard that was expected of them.
So France will miss out on World Cup glory once again, having made the final last time, when many had them as favourites all the way through for this one.
The likes of Mbappe, Michael Oliseh and Ousmane Dembele will all surely be back for another attempt at winning football’s biggest prize, but it’s the end of the road for manager Didier Deschamps, who was always going to quit at the end of the tournament after 14 years in the role. This may just have been his last job in football management, but let’s wait and see.
- Player to watch: Ousmane Dembele - 2.63 to score / 3.6 to assist.
England
England’s semi-final story is of a very different nature. They did all the hard work by keeping Lionel Messi quiet, went one goal up and had to decide whether to keep on being positive and going for a second goal to kill off the game, or protect what they had and hope for the best.
In the end, they went for the latter, conceded with five minutes to go and were in the wrong mindset from thereon, so it was no surprise when they ended up conceding a second in injury time, and by then it was too late to try and go on the attack again.
The English newspapers have been quick to blame manager Tomas Tuchel for his negative tactics after going 1-0 up rather than point the finger at the players who allowed those two late goals to be scored, but in truth, no English player had a particularly good game here anyway.
So they’ll be exiting at the semi-final stage once again, just like they did in 2018. But this time round, they’ll be looking to at least win the third/fourth place play-off, after they lost it 2-0 to Belgium eight years ago
Player to watch: Anthony Gordon - 12.0 to be first goalscorer / 4.33 to score anytime.
Did You Know?
England have contested this third/fourth playoff match on two occasions – 1990 and 2018- losing both times. France have played in this match three times – 1958, 1982 and 1986 – winning two of them.
No team has finished third in the World Cup more times than Germany: four times, the last of which was in 2010.
