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The game nobody wants — except Mbappé, one goal behind Messi with one game in hand

The third-place game is football's awkward handshake: two teams that wanted the final, made to play one more match anyway. France and England lost their semifinals within 24 hours of each other — France flattened 2-0 by Spain in Dallas after winning their first six games by a combined 16-2, England with one foot in the final until the 85th minute in Atlanta, when Lionel Messi created two Argentina goals in five minutes. Saturday in Miami is the consolation nobody asked for. It still has more riding on it than most third-place games ever do.

Start with Kylian Mbappé. He and Messi are level on eight goals at the top of the Golden Boot race, Messi holding the tiebreaker after his two semifinal assists — and Mbappé plays Saturday, Messi Sunday. Mbappé also sits on 20 career World Cup goals, one behind the all-time record of 21 that Messi took from Miroslav Klose earlier this summer, and he reached 20 faster than anyone in history. Every goal in Miami lands twice: it presses the Golden Boot back toward him and closes on a record Messi gets one more game to extend. There's precedent for a bronze final settling this kind of thing — in 1958, Just Fontaine scored four in France's third-place win over West Germany to finish with 13 goals in one World Cup, a record nobody has touched since.

England's history in this fixture is bruises. They've played two third-place matches and lost both — to Italy in 1990, to Belgium in 2018 — so they've never actually finished third at a World Cup. Against France it's worse: one win in their last nine meetings, and the freshest scar is the 2022 quarterfinal in Qatar, when Aurélien Tchouaméni scored from 25 yards, Olivier Giroud headed the winner, and Harry Kane — after converting one penalty — sent a second over the bar with the equalizer waiting. Kane is here on six goals, two behind the leaders, with his own outside shot at the Golden Boot.

And it's a farewell. Didier Deschamps announced back in January 2025 that this tournament would be his last with France, the end of 14 years that brought the 2018 title and the 2022 final; whatever happens Saturday, he walks off in Miami. Third-place games traditionally loosen up — managers hand out caps, kids get minutes, and with nothing left to protect, teams tend to just play. Given who's on these two rosters, that might be the best argument for watching a match neither of them wanted to be in.

Golden Boot

Messi and Mbappé are level on eight goals, Messi ahead on the assist tiebreaker — and Mbappé gets this extra match to retake the lead, and to close on Messi's all-time record of 21 career World Cup goals. He has 20. Kane and Bellingham sit two back on six.