Meaningless game? England hit SIX past France in 10-goal thriller as Olise breaks down in tears despite taking Pele’s World Cup record

England scored six goals in a World Cup match and it still wasn’t the biggest story of the night. The Three Lions beat France 6-4 in the World Cup 2026 third-place playoff in Miami, a 10-goal thriller that produced one of the strangest scorelines in modern tournament football. France winger Michael Olise took a long-standing World Cup record off Pele in the same match — and, according to Goal.com, left the pitch in tears after a run of uncharacteristic misses. So much for the meaningless game.

England 6-4 France: how the third-place playoff went off the rails

England won the World Cup 2026 third-place playoff 6-4 against France in Miami, a scoreline almost unheard of at this stage of a tournament. Modern knockout football is usually settled by a single goal or on penalties; ten goals in one match is the kind of scoreline that belongs to a different era of the competition.

Six goals against a France side that reached the semi-finals is a serious attacking return for England, regardless of what was at stake. It caps a tournament in which the Three Lions went deep again but fell short of the final, finishing third in the expanded 48-team World Cup.

France’s defending collapsed. Shipping six goals to a direct European rival points to accumulated fatigue at the end of the longest World Cup campaign ever played, with the 48-team format adding matches to every deep run.

Olise takes a World Cup record from Pele

Michael Olise broke a World Cup record that had belonged to Pele for decades, doing it at 24 years old in the third-place playoff. The Bayern Munich winger now holds a mark set by the only three-time World Cup winner in history, which puts his name in a very short list of players to have moved a Pele number.

The circumstances make it stranger still. The record fell in a fixture that large parts of the football world write off as a formality — no trophy, no medal beyond bronze, just third place on the official tournament ledger.

For England fans, it is a reminder of the quality France carried even in defeat. Olise has been one of the most dangerous wide players in Europe at Bayern Munich, and this tournament confirmed his standing on the international stage.

Why Olise was in tears at full-time

Olise finished the match in tears because his missed chances mattered more to him than the record he had just broken. Goal.com reported that the 24-year-old passed up a series of openings he would normally take, in a game where every error showed up immediately on the scoreboard.

It is a reaction that settles the annual argument about whether the third-place playoff is worth playing. Players in a World Cup shirt do not treat it as an exhibition, and the emotion at the final whistle in Miami made that obvious.

Olise turns 25 with at least two more World Cup cycles ahead of him. The record stays on his record; the misses will fade faster than he thinks.

What third place means for England

Third place is England’s best World Cup finish since 2018, when they lost the third-place playoff in Russia. Going one better this time gives Thomas Tuchel’s squad a concrete result to build on rather than another semi-final exit with nothing to show for it.

The bigger question is whether a bronze medal is progress or a ceiling. England have now reached the closing stages of multiple consecutive major tournaments without lifting a trophy, and the debate about converting that consistency into silverware will run straight into the next qualifying campaign.

On the evidence of Miami, the attacking talent is not the problem. Six goals against France in a World Cup match is the kind of performance that says the pieces are there — the tournament just ended one round too early again.

FAQ