•Copyright AP Photo

England beat France 6-4 in a surprisingly tense and World Cup third-place playoff, with Bukayo Saka scoring a hat trick as the Three Lions secured their best finish at the tournament since winning the title in 1966.

Saka struck in the 37th minute, again in first-half stoppage time and completed his second England hat trick from the penalty spot in the 87th minute.

Declan Rice and Ezri Konsa also found the net as England raced into a 4-0 halftime lead before surviving a relentless French fightback.

“I hope that the players can be proud of that in some time,” England coach Thomas Tuchel said.

” We are fiercely competitive, so we almost don’t allow ourselves to be proud of third place because 18 months ago we set the highest goal. We set the highest dream to chase, and we were very, very ambitious with our dream to make it to the final and win the World Cup. So it’s very, very painful if you miss out.”

Both teams had admitted beforehand they would rather have been playing in Sunday’s final, but the consolation match still produced a host of records.It was the highest-scoring World Cup match since Hungary’s 10-1 victory over El Salvador in 1982, while the 10 goals were the most ever scored in a World Cup third-place playoff.

Jude Bellingham rounded off the scoring deep into stoppage time with his seventh goal of the tournament, the most by an England player at a single World Cup.

On Sunday 19 July at the New York New Jersey Stadium, Argentina will take on Spain in the 2026 World Cup final.

Kick-off time

15:00 (New York) | 21:00 (Madrid) | 16:00 (Buenos Aires).

The match

The 104th match at the FIFA World Cup 2026 pits European champions Spain against defending world and South American champions Argentina. Spain reached the final after outclassing favourites France in the semi-finals. Luis de la Fuente’s side controlled the match from start to finish, suffocating the high-powered France attack through long spells of possession and precise finishing.

That semi-final match against Les Bleus was the high point of Spain’s campaign so far. La Roja began their World Cup adventure by topping Group H, although it wasn’t all smooth sailing. Surprise package Cabo Verde held them to a scoreless draw in their opening match before De la Fuente’s men made up for their slow start by putting four past Saudi Arabia and then rounding off their group stage with a 1-0 victory over a feisty Uruguay.

Spain cruised through the Round of 32 with a comfortable 3-0 win over Austria. But in the following two rounds they needed late winning goals from Mikel Merino to overcome tough European opponents. The first of Merino’s strikes, in the Round of 16, came against Portugal (1–0) . They followed that up with a second last-gasp victory against Belgium (2–1) in a match in which they conceded what has, so far, been their only goal against of the tournament.Spain’s form has been steadily improving and against France they demonstrated why they were considered one of the favourites before the tournament began.

Sunday 19 July will mark Spain’s first time back in the World Cup final since they lifted the trophy in 2010, when contesting the showpiece for the first time in South Africa.

Argentina have taken a hard, albeit thrilling, road to their second World Cup final in succession and seventh overall. The defending champions opened their campaign with three successive group stage victories, led by the extraordinary Lionel Messi, who now has eight goals in this tournament and 21 across his long World Cup career.

The Albiceleste defeated Algeria 3-0 thanks to a Messi hat-trick, Austria 2-0 thanks to two goals from the magician, and then Jordan 3-1 (with another Messi effort) to round off a perfect group stage.

In the knockout rounds, their road got much more difficult. Lionel Scaloni’s men needed extra time to overcome a defiant Cabo Verde side in a 3-2 thriller.

In the Round of 16, the score was the same and the match even more dramatic: Egypt held a 2-0 lead entering the 79th minute but Argentina flipped the script, producing a historic comeback to win 3-2.

In the last eight, Argentina went blow for blow with Switzerland and need extra time to eventually defeat opponents who, at 1-1, had gone down to ten men. Julian Alvarez eventually broke their resistance with a magnificent goal and Lautaro Martinez added a third for good measure.The drama did not stop in the semi-final against England, who took the lead early in the second half thanks to Anthony Gordon and looked set to run down the clock.

However, the Albiceleste once again rallied thanks to a long-range strike from Enzo Fernandez and a back-post header from substitute Martinez.

As a result, Argentina now return to the final four years on from Qatar 2022 triumph against France, and once again European opposition stand between them and the World Cup trophy.

SOURCE: FIFA

• AVIF image of England v Argentina

FIFA said that fans can now have their say as to which was most impressive from across the six quarter-final and semi-final matches, emphasising that the round of voting for the Goal of the Tournament is now open.

The contenders are Kylian Mbappe (France); Andreas Schjelderup (Norway) Jude Bellingham (England) ,Julian Alvarez (Argentina) Pedro Porro (Spain) and Enzo Fernandez (Argentina).

According to the world football body, this is the latest step in the process towards deciding the Hyundai Goal of the Tournament, with users having 48 hours to place their vote once the window opens.

After the voting window has closed, the winning goal will be announced.Having already had several rounds of voting, there will be one further vote to determine the Goal of the Tournament after this weekend’s final in New York New Jersey