We all knew that players from France and England were not happy with the third-place game. But we expected quality performances from both teams. While England did show quality, France was the exact opposite in the 6-4 loss to England. And France’s manager, Didier Deschamps, was not happy about the performance at all.

“We can’t do worse; it’s catastrophic. Every attack, we could concede a goal. I can understand the huge disappointment, but we have no right to do this… It’s a question of having honor and pride with regard to what the France national team is,” said Deschamps after the loss.

England walked away from Miami with the bronze medal after beating France 6-4 in one of the most entertaining games of this World Cup. But the score only tells part of the story in what was the final match of Didier Deschamps‘ 14-year journey with France.  

Although it was entertaining for neutral fans, it wasn’t for Deschamps. He ripped into the France team and called them out for a bad performance. Because conceding 6 goals was not the problem, the way those goals came is.

The French defense of Konate, Gusto, Theo Hernandez, and Maxence Lacroix was getting broken time and again with almost a single pass. 

Almost every big chance that England created looked like it was a goal. They created six big chances (nine shots on goal) and scored four. But their defense was simply not up to the task. Of the 11 shots on target by England, six went in; that is more than a 50 percent conversion rate.  

And this is what Deschamps meant by conceding on almost every attack. 

What makes this worse is the fact that Deschamps wanted his team to play the best game in his last game as a manager, and the team failed, and he had made his priority very clear. When the players asked for a day off to have a night out before the third-place game, Deschamps refused it outright and wanted the players to know that they still had a game to go. After this loss, Deschamps made it clear that he was very unhappy with the team.

“We’re playing a friendly match, the opponent is playing a real match.” 

Even though France tried to make a comeback in the second half and scored four goals, it was not enough as England scored two more and Bellingham sealed the game with his goal in the 90+8th minute. 

Nobody will remember this game as a classic because it carried the disappointment of two beaten semifinalists. Instead, it may be remembered as the afternoon when Deschamps’ era ended with a loss. And Kylian Mbappe’s admission before kickoff would only weigh more now:

“We should have offered you a better ending, but we failed.”