\n\tEngland was knocked out of the World Cup in painful fashion on Wednesday, surrendering two goals in the final 15 minutes of its semifinal clash with Argentina. Making matters more painful? The Three Lions weren\u2019t actually \u201cknocked out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tA day before, France surprisingly exited stage left in a 2-0 defeat to Spain. But\u00a0Les Bleus\u00a0can\u2019t go home either.<\/p>\n
\n\tInstead, France and England will square off on Saturday in Miami\u2014a clash of zombies in the World Cup\u2019s third-place game, or what FIFA<\/a> is trying to brand as \u201cthe bronze final.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn Friday\u2019s Club Sportico<\/a> essay, we look at the history and economics of the World Cup loser\u2019s bracket. Other leagues used to have similar contests at the end of their postseasons, but scrapped them in favor of expanded playoffs. Could the World Cup\u2019s third-place match be the next to go? <\/p>\n \n\tHere is an excerpt of that\u00a0essay<\/a> \u270d\ufe0f:<\/p>\n \n\tThe match is not a pure exhibition. In FIFA\u2019s team ranking formula, the third-place game has the same weight as the final played the following day. Goals scored count in the Golden Boot race, and the winning team comes away from the World Cup $2 million richer.<\/p>\n \n\tSmaller countries have cherished podium finishes. The Croatian squad celebrated extensively after its 2-1 win over Morocco four years ago.<\/p>\n \n\tBut this game is not a must-win\u2014especially for former champions like England and France. The annual soccer schedule is already jam-packed, each additional 90 minutes carries more injury risk, and most of these players star on club teams whose seasons kick off in a month.<\/p>\n \n\tFor soccer newbies, you can think of it like a non-CFP New Year\u2019s bowl game. Like those battles, some top players are expected to sit or get subbed out over the course of the match. In the hours after Argentina\u2019s comeback, when it became clear that Saturday\u2019s tilt wouldn\u2019t be Lionel Messi\u2019s World Cup swan song in his adopted hometown, ticket prices cratered. The get-in price has dropped by more than 50% over the last three days, to $625 as of Friday morning, cheaper than any of the six group stage matches England and France contested. And dropping.<\/p>\n \n\tYou can read the entire essay for free here<\/a>. Subscribe to Club Sportico<\/a>, where we discuss the intersection of sports and money\u2014with some extra humor and opinion\u2014for more casual sports business talk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England was knocked out of the World Cup in painful fashion on Wednesday, surrendering two goals in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[612,458,5],"class_list":["post-53256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-2026-world-cup","tag-fifa","tag-france"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}