This is the match nobody really wants, which is precisely why it exists. France Vs England for third place in the Copa do Mundo de 2026 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami is not a celebration of football so much as an awkward commercial afterthought, a game left standing because Fifa likes the broadcast value more than the mood in the room.
That is the uncomfortable truth here. Both teams were dumped out in the semifinals by España and Argentina, and the result is a fixture with reduced sporting interest and maximum contractual inevitability. Thomas Tuchel said what everyone was thinking: nobody wants to play it, not even the French players, because both sides wanted the final. He is right. This is not the game anyone circled when the tournament began.
And yet France still has reasons to treat it seriously. Didier Deschamps has made it clear that the team will do everything possible to win third place, insisting it is a duty to the shirt and to the supporters who followed them all the way to this point. He has been in charge since 2012, won the World Cup in 2018, reached the runner-up spot in 2022, and now this is the 103º jogo of his reign — the final one, with Zinedine Zidane expected to take over from 1º de setembro, according to L’Équipe.
So yes, the atmosphere around the game is flat. But for Deschamps, it is still the last page of a major chapter. He has already earned the right to demand professionalism, and he has done exactly that, saying this is not a friendly and that the players have an obligation to honour the commitment. That is fair enough. The occasion may be underwhelming, but it is not meaningless.
Mbappé still has a target
For Kylian Mbappé, there is another layer of motivation. Even in a match that lacks much collective glamour, he still has the chance to stay in the fight for the tournament’s scoring crown. There is also a historic point of reference hanging over the evening: the chance to move closer to a World Cup goals record that already sits in the 20-goal and 21-goal territory.
That is what prevents this from becoming a pure dead rubber. The fixture may be there for commercial reasons, but players still have reputations, numbers and legacies on the line. Mbappé knows it. Deschamps certainly knows it. And even if nobody is pretending this is the game that football dreams are made of, France Vs England still carries enough weight to avoid complete indifference.
The broader point is simple: Fifa can keep this match for television, but it cannot fake excitement. What it can do is leave France with one last chance to finish on a win and give Deschamps a proper exit. In a tournament that ended with disappointment, that is at least something.
