World Cup 3rd Place Playoff France vs England - My Picks
1-2.5% France to beat England in 90 minutes at 55c (good to 60c)
0.5-1% Kylian Mbappé anytime goalscorer at 58c (good to 60c)
0.5% France over 5.5 corners at 47c (good to 55c)
Tonight we have the second last game of the World Cup, the 3rd place playoff between France and England. France come into this off the back of a semi final they lost 2-0 to Spain despite being favoured going into the game and also having generally overperformed market expectations throughout the tournament. Given that they were joint favourites with Spain going into the tournament, to say France have generally overperformed is no small statement. Despite not being a system team like Spain, they have world class talent all across the team that means they can generally just figure it out themselves against the vast majority of opponents. This showed as they covered the Asian handicap line in every game except for against Paraguay (which they one by a solitary goal) and Spain, to whom they lost.
England meanwhile have underperformed expectations generally this tournament. Their two standout games were against Croatia and Mexico, two teams who played very open and allowed them chances to strike on the break. Against more defensive outfits like Ghana and DR Congo, England struggled, as pure athleticism was not enough to create a decisive advantage when there are bodies in the way. Against Norway they struggled to impose their will on the game, only winning after extra time. Argentina was where the wheels came off, though. After a relatively even and cautious first half, England took the lead ten minutes into the second half. What followed was a bizarre display of parking the bus from Thomas Tuchel, who took off his main attacking options leaving England with no outlet to relieve the relentless waves of pressure from Argentina, who went on to win 2-1 during injury time.
The third place playoff is unique in that there is nothing directly at stake anymore. This tends to compress draw probabilities as teams express themselves more naturally since they're not so concerned with the implications of one lapse at the back sending them home from the tournament, Teams still play for pride to end the tournament on a high, but the risk profiles each team is willing to accept change and generally it is in the direction of accepting more risk.
From a tactical point of view I see this as a bad matchup for England. Before the semi finals France and Spain made up 60% of the World Cup winner pricing while England and Argentina only made up about 40%. This is quite similar to the Spain Argentina line, so had these two teams made it through to the final, France moneyline would probably be priced around 43c or so. The line for this game actually opened at 50c. Part of that is natural to to redistribution of draw probability but the other component is markets reacting to the semi finals that they saw. England have shown throughout the tournament that their approach to defending a lead is not to control the tempo of a game or look to expand it, instead they shut up shop and Tuchel puts on Dan Burn to head away the ball for the last 20 minutes. It worked against Mexico and Norway but it didn't work against Argentina. I don't expect it to work against France either. One of the consistent things we've seen from France is if they an edge over you in midfield, they'll gradually prod and probe until they pull you out of position and manufacture a chance. If Argentina were able to subject England to a barrage of chances for the last half an hour I'd expect France to do that throughout the game. England's preferred method of attack is through fast breaks but France due to their athleticism have been great at preventing those. The goals they gave up against Spain were due to guile from the Spanish team, not raw pace or strength.
More generally there have been deeper issues with the England squad. Certain players were brought who weren't fully fit due to injuries during the season. Declan Rice has struggled with illness and it's questionable how close to his maximum he was operating during the knockout stages. France will have no concerns about lasting the distance because they have ridiculous squad depth. They've been rotating players throughout the tournament and tonight they can still bring on top talent from the bench whenever they like. More than that, the starting line ups have been quite different. With this being Deschamps last game in charge, France are going all out to win with a team close to full strength while England have made quite a few rotations. This has driven some pretty hefty line movement in favour of France. For a demoralised team such as England, France is the worst opponent they could face right now (except maybe for Spain or Argentina again).
Kylian Mbappé is still live for the golden boot. In a match such as this he will have more license to go for goal when there isn't the scrutiny of whether or not going for glory could potentially come at the cost of the team. The stakes are very different tonight and third place playoffs generally do reward the team that shows more flair and Mbappé has been one of the flair players of this tournament. Finally I can see France having a fair bit of luck with corners. They have the tools to stretch England wide time and time again and after Wednesday night's park the bus disaster, I don't think there is going to be quite so much patience for this approach vs France.
I originally built my France position up from 49c so if you like you can take this as a 2.5% play but note that the line has moved a fair bit which is why I've refrained from giving this as an outright 2.5% play. Mbappé to score I got at 54c so once again you can elevate that to a 1% play if you want but may be more marginal value at this stage. Anyway let's see how tonight's game goes, there will be two teams in it that felt they didn't do themselves justice in the semi finals so I can see it being quite an open game, hopefully with some good goals along the way.
