Mbappe Shines as France Falls in 3rd Place Match

Published: Sunday, July 19, 2026

by David Martino

Miami Stadium, Miami Florida is where the offense driven third place matchup between England and France took place yesterday afternoon. With a thrilling score of 6-4, England came out on top to make their 2026 world cup farewell feel slightly better. 

 

Declan Rice opened the flood gates in the third minute of the game with a powerful goal to put England up 1-0. The confidence of the national team did not stop there as just 15 minutes later Ezri Konsa scored once more, putting England up 2-0 early in this shootout matchup. After this the British played excellent defense to prevent France from getting on the board before they had put 2 more goals up, from the same person. That person being Bukayo Saka, scoring in the 37th and 46th minutes of the matchup, putting England up 4 goals before halftime. 

 

However, French star player Kylian Mbappe had something to say about this, as he put 2 goals up in the matchup, coming in the 48th and 66th minute, along with help from Bradley Barcola in the 54th minute with a goal of his own. This helped put the national team back in the contest with the score being 4-3, England leading at this point. This was until Saka struck once more with his 3rd goal of the contest off a penalty kick in the 87th minute. At this point the contest was over with England coming out on top as 3rd place victors, but there were two more goals scored, with the first coming for France with Ousmane Dembélé scoring in the 96th minute, and Jude Bellingham scoring the final goal in the 98th minute, crowning England the victors of this 3rd place shootout with a final score of 6-4.  

 

Mbappe's 2 goals in this match put him in first place for the Golden Boot race. Lionel Messi of Argentina will need to score 2 goals in the World Cup Final to win the Golden Boot on the tie breaker or 3 goals to win it outright. 

 

With 3rd place being decided, there is only one more match to go, that being Lionel Messi’s potential GOAT moment, bringing Argentina to its first back-to-back world cup and his second, or possibly Spain’s Lamine Yamal’s first World Cup victory of his career. Either way, it will be an exciting matchup to watch, with it taking place in NY/NJ Stadium in East Rutherford NJ Sunday at 3:00pm. 

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