00:00The match nobody wanted to play became the match nobody wanted to end.
00:04And by the final whistle, we were running out of words to describe it.
00:12For decades, it was football's forgotten fixture.
00:16Instead, England and France turned the bronze final into a masterclass of how the game should be played.
00:226-4 looks more like centre court than centre circle.
00:26Instead, England and France served up 10 goals, one of this World Cup's greatest spectacles.
00:32England flew out of the blocks.
00:35Declan Rice struck first, Esri Khonsa added another, then Bukayo Saka took over.
00:41Answering every question left by the semi-final, his hat-trick put him alongside Jeff Hurst in England's World Cup
00:48history.
00:49It also revived one uncomfortable question.
00:51If Saka could do this today, why wasn't he unleashed against Argentina?
00:57Thomas Tuchel finally released the handbrake.
01:00England attacked with freedom, pace and purpose.
01:04Funny how much faster a Ferrari goes when someone remembers to take off the brakes.
01:08Then everything flipped.
01:10France woke up.
01:11Kylian Mbappe smelled blood.
01:13England's four-goal cushion melted as France poured forward.
01:16Momentum is football's greatest thief.
01:19One minute you're cruising, the next, you're praying for the final whistle.
01:24Mbappe kept making history, climbing above Lionel Messi as the World Cup's all-time leading scorer.
01:29But even he couldn't complete France's astonishing comeback.
01:33Saka coolly buried the penalty to complete his hat-trick before Jude Bellingham hammered home England's sixth with the final
01:40kick.
01:41England finally exhaled.
01:44The three Lions left with bronze, their best World Cup finish since 1966.
01:50But while the players restored England's pride, Tuchel still has critics to convince.
01:56Football doesn't get much better than this.
01:59Sensational, thrilling, epic, extraordinary, mind-boggling.
02:02We're running out of superlatives.
02:04England won the medal.
02:06Football won the day.
02:09Wow.
02:09Just wow.
02:11Frankie D. Cruz, Bob Holmes, and Amardeep Gil.
02:14FMT.
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