England "fall short" once again - but will the 2026 World Cup go down as a successful tournament for the Three Lions?

Ahead of England's 2026 World Cup third-placed playoff against France, Sports Mole's Football Editor Matt Law discusses the Three Lions' tournament as a whole.

Matt Law, Football Editor: "Football is always about context"

Football is always about context - you look at who we've beaten. The Mexico game was iconic, a game that will forever be remembered for loads of reasons. 

Was it a great performance? Probably not - it was more of a gutsy performance. Were England great against Norway? Probably not, and slightly fortunate to get through that game. 

The Ghana game was really poor; Panama were quite poor as well. Congo, Mexico, Norway - third time out you come up against the world champions, a really good side, and you come up short. 

On paper, if they finish third, it would be their second-best World Cup ever, and that can certainly be taken. 

Can we say it's been a success? If you'd said at the start of the tournament that England would reach the semifinals, most people would probably say that's quite good. 

I didn't ever expect England to win it. I hoped they would after the last few rounds, and before the Argentina game I really thought they had a really good chance. 

But just reaching the semi-finals is good - dive deeper into the facts, they've beaten teams they should have beaten, then come up against a really good side and fallen short. 

We've read this story before, and we hoped it had a different ending this time. I'm 50/50: semi-finals on paper is good, but look deeper and it falls short again.

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