Bukayo Saka breaks 60-year record: England returns with bronze

The World Cup third-place play-off turned into a true show that will go down in football history. England defeated France 6-4, with Bukayo Saka scoring a hat-trick to achieve a rare feat not seen since the legendary Geoff Hurst.

This victory brought the English their first World Cup medal since 1966. Saka was the main hero of a dramatic match that saw 10 goals scored.

Saka stunned France in the first half

England started the match very actively, scoring four unanswered goals before the break. Saka scored his first in the 37th minute and found the back of Mike Maignan's net again in first-half stoppage time.

Declan Rice and Ezri Konsa also scored in the first half. Thus, Thomas Tuchel's side went into the break with a massive 4-0 lead.

In the second half, France Kylian Mbappé led a major comeback. However, Saka converted a penalty in the 87th minute to complete his hat-trick. Later, Jude Bellingham scored England's sixth goal — 6-4.

The second player after Hurst

Saka became the second player in England's history to score a hat-trick in a World Cup knockout stage match.

Previously, only Geoff Hurst had achieved this result. He scored three goals against West Germany in the 1966 World Cup final, bringing England its only world title in history.

One of Hurst's goals in extra time remains one of the most controversial episodes in football history. The ball hit the crossbar, landed near the line, and the referee awarded the goal. That famous episode later went down in history as the 'ghost goal'.

6-4 — a new World Cup record

The match between England and France became the highest-scoring third-place play-off in history.

The previous record belonged to the 1958 match where France defeated West Germany 6-3. In the match in Miami, the teams scored a total of 10 goals, breaking a 68-year-old record. This was also the first World Cup game with 10 or more goals since 1982.

England wins a medal again since 1966

England had settled for fourth place in their previous two semi-finals — 1990 and 2018. The victory over France gave the team its best result since the 1966 title.

A bronze medal does not replace a world title. But after a painful semi-final defeat to Argentina, the English managed to end the tournament with a win and put an end to a 60-year medal drought.

Bukayo Saka became both a hat-trick author and the first Englishman since Hurst to score three goals in a World Cup knockout match in a single night. The bronze match is often called 'the game no one wants to play', but Saka turned it into one of the most memorable nights of his career.