Hours after England’s semifinal loss to Argentina at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, manager Thomas Tuchel didn’t hold back. The third-place playoff, he argued, is a match nobody actually wants to play.

“None of the players want to play this match,” Tuchel said on July 15, calling it a fixture that “should never be played.”

The case against the bronze medal match

England will now face France in the consolation match. This particular World Cup has been a sprawling affair, co-hosted across the US, Canada, and Mexico with an expanded 48-team format, making the 2026 tournament the largest in FIFA history.

Fan tokens and memecoins catch the World Cup wave

This World Cup has been notably intertwined with the…