England absolutely poured it on France in the World Cup third-place match on Saturday, July 18! The Three Lions walked away from Hard Rock Stadium with a commanding 3-0 lead, a scoreline nobody predicted. Bukayo Saka slammed home the third goal in the 37th minute to seal it, but honestly, this was an all-around dominant performance that started early and just kept coming.
French Defense Was Out of Sorts From the Jump
The French defense looked completely lost trying to handle England’s relentless counterattack. On Saka’s goal, France goalkeeper Mike Maignan made a huge gamble, abandoning his net to try and shut down Marcus Rashford, who had too much open space. Maignan managed to stop Rashford for a second, but then the ball just bounced around in the box like a pinball. Who was there? None other than Saka, who unleashed a shot that found the net after a deflection off a French defender on the goal line. Pure chaos for France. Saka’s strike was just the cherry on top of an already brilliant attacking display.
Rice Answered Every Single Critic With His Boots
Before Saka even put the game completely out of reach, England was already sitting pretty with a 2-0 lead. That second goal? It was a sick header from Ezri Konsa in the 18th minute, set up perfectly by a brilliant corner kick assist from midfielder Declan Rice. But Rice wasn’t done showing up. He bagged England’s first goal of the evening himself! He intercepted a pass near midfield, drove *unimpeded* to the French penalty box, then ripped a beautiful right-footed shot into the net. This is the same Declan Rice who got absolutely hammered by the English press, with Scottish pundit Graeme Souness questioning if he was even a true midfielder or if he should just be shoved into a defensive center back role. Tonight, Rice put on a clinic and proved every single one of those critics wrong.
Pundits Got It All Wrong, And England Just Smiled
Here’s the kicker: almost every prediction out there had France winning this thing. Seth Vertelney from USA TODAY thought it was France 3, England 1. Ben Knapton at Sports Mole, Byron David at Goal.com, and Richard Parry at Squawka all had France winning 2-1. Even Dimers.com predicted a 1-1 tie, with France ultimately winning on penalties. England just laughed in the face of all those predictions! They played like a team with fire, especially after that tough 2-1 loss to Argentina in the World Cup semifinals just a few days prior. Tonight, they finished their World Cup journey with a massive statement win. If you somehow missed it, you could’ve caught the game on Fox or Telemundo, or streamed it on Fubo or Peacock.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
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