Having not resigned after England’s elimination at the hands of Argentina in Atlanta, Thomas Tuchel could barely contain his excitement at playing the third-place play-off against France. “None of our players and none of the French players want to play this match,” he said. You could have fooled us. Hard Rock Stadium in Miami was close to a full house for a game that could have been a final and ended up feeling like a deleted scene or alternate ending to a great movie; a bonkers 6-4 thriller. Aside from giving Didier Deschamps a dignified au revoir after 14 years in the France job (he got one, sort of), this unserious but surprisingly fun game was about pride and Kylian Mbappe beating Lionel Messi to the Golden Boot by any means necessary, even if overhauling him and breaking the all-time record via the so-called ‘Bronze final’ should feel pretty hollow. Is it OK for the Bronze Final to be considered a proper World Cup match?The World Cup third-place play-off is like the Bermuda triangle. It’s a game teams disappear into. France and England were knocked out in the semi-finals, but still somehow remained in the competition. Just without points or progress on offer. It raises the question: should FIFA allow a prize as prestigious as the Golden Boot to be decided by a game that has nothing else riding on it? Should the course of World Cup history be influenced by a nothing game?Going into the final weekend of the tournament, Kylian Mbappe found himself level with Lionel Messi on eight goals as the World Cup’s top scorer. Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham were on six. Did the Golden Boot have any bearing on France and England’s team selection? Rather than give Jean-Philippe Mateta a chance, Deschamps opted to start Mbappe. A different approach was taken by Tuchel. He left out Kane and Bellingham in order for Ivan Toney to play more than the one minute he got at the end of the Argentina game. Four-nil down at half-time, Mbappe started a ridiculous comeback. Michael Olise set him up twice to tie the tournament assist record set by Pele in 1970. The brace Mbappe put away meant he stretched clear of Messi who has a chance to match or out-do him in the final. The Argentine will need a hat-trick. He has already scored one this tournament. But only Geoff Hurst (1966) and Mbappe (2022) have ever scored one in a final. If Mbappe does leave the U.S. with the Golden Boot it won’t be the first time the third-place play-off played a role in deciding it. Roberto Baggio let Toto Schillaci take a penalty against England in 1990, affording him the chance to overtake Czechoslovakia’s Tomas Skuhravy.