England 6-4 France — A Bronze Final For The Ages, My Verdict

The last game of the 2026 World Cup — Saturday 18 July, 21:00 ET — turned out to be the most entertaining, and produced a result that has not happened for England since 1966 in a very specific way. England beat France 6-4 in the bronze final, the ten-goal game was the highest-scoring match at a World Cup since 1982, and Bukayo Saka scored a hat-trick that will be replayed in highlight packages for years. England go home third; France go home fourth. The Deschamps era ends; the Saka-era English front line begins to define itself.

The Match, Minute by Minute

England were 2-0 up inside 15 minutes, France were 3-2 up by the break, England led 4-3 with 20 minutes to play, and the close-out was an open, end-to-end, two-behind-and-broke game in which both defences stopped playing and both attacks remembered they were at a World Cup. Saka’s hat-trick (right-foot finish, left-foot curler, deflected strike) was the headline, but the supporting cast was just as important — Jude Bellingham pulled the strings in behind, Harry Kane rolled back three years to lead the line with his usual supply line, and the French response through Mbappé kept the scoreboard ticking over in time for the broadcasters to keep the highlight reel fresh.

France are the wrong side of the result but the right side of the player performance. Mbappé finished the tournament with 10 goals, two clear of Messi, and took the Bronze Ball for his trouble. He finishes with 22 career World Cup goals, one ahead of Messi at 21 — the all-time record. France lose their best player to a fourth-place finish and their manager of fourteen years (Didier Deschamps, replaced in due course by Zinedine Zidane) to retirement. The whole French night is bittersweet.

My match rating: 9/10. Ten goals, two hat-tricks (Saka one, the French scorers were spread), end-to-end, settled in regulation. A bronze final that elevated the tournament.

What 6-4 Means for England’s Record

England’s third place in 2026 is the first time they have finished a World Cup third since winning the whole thing in 1966. Sixty years. Sixty years is a long time for a major nation to be waiting for a podium at the sport’s flagship event, and even longer when you remember that two of those decades were spent missing tournaments entirely. The 6-4 line is flattering — France scored four of their own, were arguably the better team for stretches, and would have been a 5-4 winner on xG with a more clinical Sunday — but the result and the medal are what counts.

The path to third here is the more interesting story. England were runners-up in the 2024 Euros, semi-finalists in 2022, and this is the second major tournament in a row in which they have cleared the group with a game to spare. Tuchel’s squad — for it is Tuchel’s, post-Southgate, and that fact alone is one of the more interesting appointments English football has made — has now cleared the knockout round in three of the last three editions. That is the most consistent major-tournament record of any Three Lions side since the 1966 one.

My England rating for the tournament: 8/10. Highest World Cup finish since 1966, silver lining after the Spain semi-final, a bronze-final win after a 9-goal Saturday evening.

Mbappé’s Tournament Within the Tournament

The Mbappé sub-story is the one Irish and English viewers both have skin in. He walks off with the Golden Boot, the Bronze Ball and the all-time World Cup goal record — three pieces of individual silverware from a team campaign that finished fourth. There is no precedent for that at any major tournament I can remember. He also confirmed himself as France’s all-time leading scorer for the tournament across editions and put to bed, once and for all, the silly argument about whether 2022 was a one-off. It was not. The man is now 22 World Cup goals clear of Pelé in the all-time tables.

Where this leaves France tactically is the bigger question. Deschamps is leaving. Zidane is the favourite to take over. The squad — Mbappé, Camavinga, Tchouaméni, Saliba, Konaté, the brilliant Dembélé — is still ahead of its curve. France will be among the favourites for 2030 regardless of who is sitting in the dugout.

My Mbappé rating for the tournament: 9.5/10. Fourth place with the Boot and the record. I have written that line a few times this column. I will keep writing it.

The Deschamps Era Ends — Quietly, After the Worst Possible Exit

Deschamps goes after 14 years and two finals. France won in 2018, lost the 2022 final on penalties, lost the 2026 semi-final 2-0 to Spain, and now lost the bronze game 6-4. The exit is not on him — the 2026 run, including that brilliant group-phase comeback against Norway and the dismantling of Croatia in the round of 16, was a competent campaign — but it is the wrong way to bow out, and Deschamps deserves better. He will walk away with the second-highest win rate in major-international coaching history, behind only his predecessor (Aimé Jacquet, who handed him the team in 1998). The 2018 title is his legacy. The 2026 semi is the footnote.

Deschamps rating for his final tournament: 7/10. Rating for his tenure overall: 9/10.

My Verdict on Saturday’s Bronze Final

The result mattered for the medal table. The result mattered for Bellingham, Kane and the rest of the English squad, who had been on the wrong end of a late Spain goal in midweek and wanted to finish on the right side of a scoreline. Saka’s hat-trick mattered for his own standing, after a tournament of rotation minutes and quiet domestic form, and the young Arsenal forward signalled with three goals in 90 minutes that he is ready to inherit the wide starting role for the next cycle.

Mbappé’s evening mattered because it confirmed — in case we needed it — the Golden Boot race and the all-time record in one game. France’s evening mattered because it closed the Deschamps book with grace and a wasteful scoreboard. The neutral’s evening mattered because we got the best bronze final in living memory, ten goals, and a hat-trick to remember.

For Irish and British viewers, Saturday’s bronze final gave us one final reminder of the headline that had been quietly true since the start of the tournament: the 2026 World Cup was, in any reasonable count, the highest-quality tournament in the modern era, played by the deepest squads in the competition’s history, and the bronze medal at the end of it all carried as much weight as the silver. Spain are the world champions. England are the best of the rest, for the first time in 60 years. France are out of a manager but not out of a generation. See you in 2030.

My bronze-final verdict: 9/10 for the night, 8/10 for the tournament, 9.5/10 for Mbappé.

For the wider reads, see my Spain-as-champions verdict, my awards verdict on Rodri and Mbappé and the closing column for Irish punters.

Match and tournament facts drawn from the tournament record (final state 20 July ET). 18+. Bet responsibly, set a limit, and when the fun stops, stop.