Why the Bronze Medal Match Gets Weirdly Brilliant

Geoffrey Ashworth

It is the, er, the silence that gets you first. I- I- I'm sitting here in a hotel room in, uh, in North Carolina, and for the first time in a month... nothing. No drums. No car horns. Just the hum of the air conditioner and the empty training pitches down the road. The circus has packed its tents, or at least, it's moved the main show up to New Jersey for the final. And those left behind are in a, well, a sort of footballing purgatory. I've actually been using Jellypod this week just to, you know, sort through the mountain of French and English press clippings without losing my mind. But the mood in both camps... oh, it's heavy. How do you, um, how do you get out of bed on a Thursday morning when on Tuesday night, your entire universe collapsed? England, conceding that ninety-first minute goal to Argentina in Atlanta... a brutal, agonizing two-one defeat. Thomas Tuchel's tactical retreat backfiring at the absolute worst moment. And France, dismantled two-nil by a relentless Spain. Your dream is dead. It's gone. But the schedule-makers, in their infinite, slightly sadistic wisdom, say: "No, don't go home yet. Go to Charlotte. Play another ninety minutes." It is, er, it is football's most beautiful punishment.

Geoffrey Ashworth

It makes you think, doesn't it? How do you motivate yourself for... for third place? I remember... goodness, thirty-six years ago now. Italy ninety. I was a young reporter, wet behind the ears, standing in the humid air of Bari. England had just lost that heartbreaking penalty shootout to West Germany in Turin. Gaza's tears, the whole lot. And they had to play Italy in the third-place match. I- I remember Bobby Robson... Sir Bobby, as he became... talking to us. He didn't treat it as a chore. He looked at his squad... men like Peter Shilton, who was forty years old and playing his last international match... and he said, "This isn't a wake. It's a celebration." They lost two-one to Italy, but Shilton got his send-off, and the players, they actually smiled. They played with a, a kind of freedom that had been choked out of them by the pressure of the semi-final. It was about... about closure. And that, I think, is what Tuchel and Didier Deschamps have to find this week. Not a bronze medal, but a way to say goodbye to a journey that almost reached the stars.

Geoffrey Ashworth

But here is the twist. The, the, the great paradox of the third-place play-off. Because nobody really wants to be there, it almost always becomes the most entertaining match of the entire tournament. It's true! The tactical cages are unlocked. The fear of failure... that suffocating weight that makes semi-finals so tense and defensive... it just evaporates. Historically, these matches average over three-point-eight goals per game. Think about that! And in the entire history of the World Cup, there has never... not once... been a single goalless draw in a third-place match. It's as if the managers say, "Oh, details, details... just go out and play."

Geoffrey Ashworth

We've seen it before. Go back to nineteen-fifty-eight in Gothenburg. France versus West Germany. A heavily rotated French side went out and put on an absolute clinic. Six-three! And the legendary Just Fontaine scored four goals in that single match, sealing his record of thirteen goals in a single tournament. A record that, let's be honest, will probably never, ever be broken. So, what do we get on Saturday at Bank of America Stadium? It's France and England. Two European powerhouses, utterly exhausted, playing for pride. Will we see Tuchel give starts to the depth players? Young Adam Wharton in midfield, maybe Ivan Toney up front to show what he can do? Or will Deschamps unleash Kylian Mbappé one last time, let him run wild to chase the Golden Boot? I suspect we'll see a bit of both. A strange, beautiful, chaotic mixture of reserve players desperate to prove themselves and superstars playing without the handbrake on. It won't have the, the- the heavy, historical gravity of Sunday's final at MetLife Stadium... where Lionel Messi's Argentina will try to deny Lamine Yamal and Spain their destiny. No, Sunday is about immortality. But Saturday... Saturday in Charlotte is about something else. It's about pride. It's about closure. And, just maybe, it's a reminder of why we fell in love with this game in the first place, before the tactics and the pressure took over. Just eleven against eleven, running onto a pitch because they've still got a ball, and they've still got ninety minutes left to play. Right. I'm off to find a decent cup of tea in North Carolina. Not easy, let me tell you. Safe travels, everyone.