Picture this: England are one of the last teams playing in the World Cup. It’s third against fourth in the world rankings, and the Three Lions have raced into a 4-0 first-half lead against one of the pre-tournament favourites.
A one-man Declan Rice band is putting France’s midfield to shame, Bukayo Saka is farming TikTok comp clips from the right flank, and Kylian Mbappe can’t make a dent in a Dean Henderson-shaped wall.
Life’s good, right? No, it’s bloody awful.
England so strong, yet so painful
That’s because this is, of course, the dreaded third-place play-off game, the prize being a bronzed box on your nation’s World Cup Wikipedia page.
It’s a quick start from England! 🦁⚡Declan Rice fires home the opener in the third minute against France ⚽ pic.twitter.com/ID4u3rXOuMJuly 18, 2026
I’d have been minded to agree before the first whistle blew, fully expecting Mbappe’s Golden Boot campaign to reach a dubiously successful conclusion – and it still did, but that didn’t account for SIX England goals.
As Rice, Ezri Konsa, Jude Bellingham and Saka (thrice) whistled the ball past Mike Maignan, all I could muster was a bitter chuckle. Nothing about this was consoling.
I didn’t think the bronze-medal battle could get any worse, until I saw it go well.
Where was this version of Rice, the one we all know, in the previous rounds? How does Saka look like he’s never been scathed by injury in his life? Why have we saved this for the world’s most pointless fixture? And how are we pulling it off without Harry Kane or Jude Bellingham (for most of it, at least)?
Yes, okay, I concede we may not have witnessed a vintage Les Bleus, who no doubt would have presented a more lethal version of themselves had the trophy been on the line, but if we can make the 2018 victors look like minnows, in Didier Deschamps’ farewell ceremony, what more were we capable of?
Watching Marcus Rashford fire off rockets incumbered by pressure, seeing Eberechi Eze glide across the pitch picking up pockets of space as he does so well, and witnessing Djed Spence shuttle up and down like an Avanti West Coast train, I think I know the answer. And that’s why this performance, which should ordinarily be a disposable, forgettable game, feels so painful.
All the parts might have been there; we just didn’t put them together.
One glimmer of hope comes courtesy of the age of many of those involved, who will be hitting their prime as the 2030 edition rocks around, but forgive me for postponing that sober analysis for now.
