The Most Important Match

Most people would say the third-place play-off is the most pointless match in football.

Cancel it.

The players have done enough. No one cares. They came to win the World Cup. If they can’t, let them go home, lick their wounds and prepare for the next turn of the regular-season merry-go-round.

I wholeheartedly disagree.

For me, the third-place play-off is one of the most important matches of the tournament—perhaps even of the entire four-year cycle.

Because, stripped of the pressure of winning, stripped of FIFA politics, stripped of the need to bend every rule for the smallest advantage, these wonderful players—some of the best in the world—can simply do what they do best.

Play football.

I hoped, prayed even, for a game like that today. One where the coaches unshackled their teams and simply let them have fun.

And fun they had.

The only question was whether France intentionally allowed England to take a four-goal lead in the first half just to make the second half more interesting.

At half-time I was furious, cursing the French for their attitude. How dare they not show up to entertain the people paying thousands of dollars to watch? Conceited, entitled, over-privileged prima donnas. At least England had turned up.

I even suggested that Tuchel, despite his semi-final shambles, might just have done enough to save his job by sending out a team determined to entertain the fans in their mourning.

Typical of the French. Take their racquet and the boule home, wave the white flag and head home in a sulk.

Shame.

As I finished my tirade and walked back to my seat from the bar, I said to my friend, “But just you watch. It’s not beyond the French to come out and score five.”

After all, I’d predicted beforehand that this game would finish 6–5.

I just hadn’t said to whom.

There’s a tiny part of me that genuinely believes the French did it on purpose.

Deschamps made a quadruple substitution, bringing on a cavalry of star players for the second half. France scored within minutes.

I knew then we were in for something special.

I think I enjoyed that second half more than any other forty-five minutes of football I’ve watched in the last four years.

Twenty-two boys—because, let’s be honest, that’s what they are—simply having a kick-about.

I’d like to think that, despite the multimillion-dollar contracts, for just a few minutes they remembered what it was like as wee boys kicking a ball around the park in Birmingham or Marseille, or wherever they grew up, simply because they loved the game.

I never played anywhere near their standard, of course.

But in that forty-five minutes I saw football the way I remember it as a boy.

Jumpers for goalposts.

A field with no touchlines.

Playing on whatever patch of grass—or dirt—we could find until the sun went down and you heard your mum’s voice through the gloaming.

“James! Time to come in. Your tea’s ready.”

I even remembered that when the boys from our street were much better than the boys from the next street, we’d sometimes give them a four-goal start just to make it interesting.

Maybe that’s what the French were doing.

The smiles on those superstars’ faces at the final whistle told the story.

The result meant absolutely nothing.

They were just a bunch of lads out for a kick-about on a Saturday afternoon.

I have to confess, I became a little emotional.

Yes, the third-place play-off is ridiculous.

It would be very easy to get rid of it.

But perhaps that’s exactly why it matters.

Its only purpose is to entertain, free from the pressure of the tournament and FIFA’s shenanigans, and to showcase the extraordinary talent of these players.

And entertained I most certainly was.

Thank you.