The Game Nobody Wants to Play Is Today
France vs England for third place. Mbappé wants goals. England wants to go home.
Third-place matches are weird. You just lost a semifinal. Your tournament dreams are over. And now you have to play another game that doesn't matter for anything except a bronze medal nobody will remember in six months.
France lost 2-0 to Spain. Clean. Decisive. They got beat by a better team on the day and they know it. England lost 2-1 to Argentina after leading 1-0 until the 85th minute. They got their hearts ripped out in stoppage time. These are not the same kind of losses.
The Kid flagged the emotional math here and I think it matters. France can process their loss and move on. England has to play a consolation match 72 hours after watching their World Cup evaporate in the final five minutes. That's a different headspace.
Mbappé has 8 goals and a Golden Boot tiebreaker to worry about. Messi leads him on assists, 4-3, and if Messi scores Sunday or the totals stay tied, Mbappé loses. But if Mbappé pads his total today and Messi blanks tomorrow, the math changes. He has motivation to hunt goals.
England has motivation to get on a plane.
France 2, England 1. Mbappé scores. England scores a consolation goal that doesn't matter. The third-place match delivers exactly what third-place matches always deliver: a game that happened.
Saturday, July 18, Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens. I have France at 0.55. The emotional asymmetry is the edge.