England’s ridiculous summer gets its ridiculous ending with 6-4 third-place play-off victory

So maybe this is what Thomas Tuchel was planning for all along, what he meant when he said England would perform better against better teams, when the opposition really wanted to play, or didn’t want to at all. This is what he was saving Bukayo Saka for, what Saka appears to have been saving himself for. Maybe this is the real quiz.

A ridiculous summer got its ridiculous ending, the summer of Judemania, of cheekbone fever, Djed Spence as Bobby Moore, Thomas Tuchel as sex symbol. The Azteca was perhaps English football’s greatest World Cup night since 1966, vivid and overwhelming and exhilarating, part of the country’s most entertaining major tournament run in 30 years – to say the most ridiculous line of all – best World Cup finish since 1966. Anthony Barry produced perhaps his defining half-time sermon, saying “the cynics will say it’s too late,” (that’s because it is, Anthony!) and choking up as he praised “11 lads with broken hearts.” Had this not been such an utterly infuriating exhibition of everything England failed to do against Argentina, it would have been hilarious. Scratch that, it was still hilarious, laughably absurd, football as sketch comedy, as stag do, as ayahuasca trip. 

Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium was probably 90% full, validation of the World Cup’s cultural and marketing power more than of the spectacle itself. As many fans wore Colombia and Mexico shirts as England or France, this largely constituted a nice, if still inordinately expensive, day out for locals. Even in the middle of the most obviously active French block, a lone El Salvadoran flag fluttered. The first Mexican wave rolled round on 17 minutes with nearly unanimous participation. The camera panned to one phalanx of England fans with flags for West Bromwich Albion, Caernarfon Town and Lincoln, and another who had clearly never experienced an English winter, who couldn’t point to Exeter on a map. “Feel the World Cup energy,” a gaudy sign begged. No, please feel it. It’s still here, I promise, if you really believe in it.

Tuchel’s name was booed pre-match, and he selected a team so bizarre it appeared to be a comedic bit. Declan Rice and Saka, who have endured varying levels of exhaustion and excruciating pain over the past five weeks, both started. Ivan Toney replaced Harry Kane, despite Tuchel making it abundantly clear for six weeks that his only use was as a bearded penalty robot. Having not played a minute all tournament, Kobbie Mainoo missed out through injury, just to add to the evening’s bizarro energy.

And yet after 90 seconds, Marcus Rashford’s cross narrowly evaded Toney on the penalty spot. Within three minutes, Rice, who has apparently enjoyed three weeks in the Bahamas and a rigorous pre-season since last Wednesday, intercepted a Désiré Doué pass and scored from 20 yards under limited pressure. Saka broke behind a French defence which appeared to find new levels of not caring, but having curled round Mike Maignan he was a foot offside. Then Rice’s miraculous corners suddenly reappeared for the first time since the Croatia game and Ezri Konsa doubled England’s lead.  

From an attacking perspective, this might have been the best half England have played this century. Saka’s goal came from a penalty box farce starring him, Rashford and half the French defence, then he added another by once again breaching a French backline begging to be breached.

And then something resembling normality returned, albeit temporarily. England stopped trying, presumed a four-goal lead was unassailable. France remembered this was Didier Deschamps’s last game after 14 years, remembered Kylian Mbappé was Kylian Mbappé. He scored twice, either side of Bradley Barcola’s Saka impression. At 4-3 Michael Olise missed two astonishing chances, first side-footing wide in space and then bending past the post from 10 yards. It was only when Malo Gusto fouled Djed Spence, as clumsy as it was pointless, and Saka scored a third that the realisation Tuchel’s job could be newly at-risk abated. Ousmane Dembélé and Jude Bellingham still found time to make this the highest-scoring match of the World Cup.

Of course this all happened in a game that not only didn’t matter but that no-one involved appeared to care about, a money-grabbing exercise still sponsored by Aramco, still featuring Powerade hydration breaks. Fifa couldn’t even work out what they were calling it, advertised as the “match for third place,” but listed on the teamsheet as the “bronze final”. Only they could organise their tournament’s least serious match the day before its most serious.

Didier Deschamps said “the English team don’t want to play, we do not either,” which Tuchel confirmed. Ibrahima Konaté, who had played 14 minutes before today, asked “how do we mobilise and motivate ourselves?”. “I will be watching it,” two 18-year-old fans back home told the BBC, “but I won’t be happy.” It also fundamentally damages the integrity of the golden boot, if there is such a thing, Mbappé’s goals potentially deciding what began as a ludicrously elite competition, leaving his extraordinary achievement with a completely futile asterisk.

On reflection, this is a real missed opportunity for Fifa, for America, to create lasting innovation for the World Cup. Imagine what this could have been. The most betted-on coin flip ever. Harry Kane vs Kylian Mbappé in a no-holds-barred hot-dog eating contest. The whole thing decided by an old-school MLS penalty shootout. A grudge match for the custody of Guernsey. 

The most spirited argument in its defence came from Davor Šuker, who said “the rich don’t want to play when they lose,” which is also, you know, the format of a knockout tournament, and that “the world also belongs to the medium-sized nations, the small ones, and those who simply enjoy football. How could I forget? Shall we just let every team play World Cup games all the time because they enjoy football (although, with another potential expansion to 64 teams, this might actually be Fifa policy)?

Maybe there are lessons to learn from this game, apparent confirmation that Atlanta was purely psychological, proof of what a fully-fit Rice and Saka could have provided across five weeks, of what Just Letting Go actually looks like. But really you might as well believe that your ayahuasca trip helped you see God. A ridiculous summer gets its ridiculous ending. 

Photograph by Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images