The press box is always emptiest during the third-place playoff. By the time the consolation match rolls around, the jet-lagged, coffee-fueled cohort of football writers have already booked their flights home. They sit in airport lounges, typing out lazy columns about how these matches are a "cruel joke," a "meaningless exhibition," or "the game that absolutely nobody wants to play."
When Didier Deschamps says he is happy to play it, the media calls him a corporate stooge. They claim he is just putting on a brave face, trying to salvage a failed tournament campaign with PR-trained optimism. For another perspective, read: this related article.
They are entirely wrong.
The media’s collective hatred for the consolation match is born of pure laziness. For a tournament manager operating at the absolute razor's edge of international football, this "meaningless" fixture is actually the most valuable 90 minutes of his entire cycle. Deschamps does not just tolerate this game. He needs it. And if you understood the brutal reality of modern international squad management, you would want it too. Similar insight on this matter has been provided by Bleacher Report.
The Myth of the Consolation Prize
Let’s dismantle the primary argument of the football romantic: “No one remembers who finished third.”
This is a spectator’s privilege. Fans watch football for the high-definition drama of silverware. Managers do not have that luxury. To a national team coach, a tournament is not a movie with a neat three-act structure; it is a brutal, high-attrition research project.
In a standard tournament knockout bracket, every single second is played under the shadow of the guillotine. If you make a mistake, you go home. If you try a new tactical variation and it fails, you face a national inquest. This structural terror forces managers into extreme conservatism. They play the same trusted veterans. They refuse to alter their defensive blocks. They stick to what is safe because survival is the only metric that matters.
Then comes the playoff.
For the first time in a month, the guillotine is dismantled. The pressure valve is fully released. What the media views as a dead rubber, Deschamps views as a laboratory. It is a rare, high-intensity match against elite opposition where the result carries zero existential risk.
To call this game useless is to misunderstand how elite athletes are built. You do not blood the next generation of international talent in a friendly against Andorra in November. You blood them in a stadium filled with fifty thousand screaming fans against an opponent that is still hurting from their own semi-final defeat.
The Crucial Physics of Squad Transition
International managers suffer from a permanent, structural deficit: they do not get time with their players. Club managers get nine months of daily training sessions to build patterns of play and test tactical chemistry. International managers get a handful of chaotic two-week windows scattered across the calendar, followed by a frantic month-long summer tournament.
Because of this time poverty, international squads are incredibly difficult to transition. When a golden generation starts to age, managers find themselves trapped. Do they stick with the declining legends who know the system, or do they throw unproven 21-year-olds into a must-win Euro qualifier?
I have watched national teams delay their inevitable rebuilds for years because they lacked the courage—and the venue—to transition. They cling to the past until they crash out of a group stage, and then the manager gets sacked, leaving a pile of ashes for the next guy.
The third-place playoff is the bridge over this chasm.
Consider what a manager can do in this fixture:
- Test tactical elasticity: Want to see if your squad can transition from a low-block 4-3-3 to a high-pressing 3-5-2 against a world-class midfield? This is your only chance to try it without risking your job.
- Evaluate mental resilience: Which of your reserve players are sulking because they did not start the semi-final, and which ones are treating this match like a World Cup final? You learn more about a player’s character in a "meaningless" match than you ever will when things are going well.
- Build future caps: International football requires a specific type of match fitness and psychological comfort. Giving a young center-back his third cap in a high-profile stadium prepares him for the pressure of the upcoming qualification cycle.
Deschamps is a pragmatist. He won a World Cup as a player by doing the dirty, unglamorous work in midfield, and he won one as a manager by prioritizing defensive stability over aesthetic beauty. He does not care about the narrative of "glorious failure." He knows that a football team is an engine that requires constant maintenance, and the consolation match is a free diagnostic test.
Historical Evidence the Media Ignores
The "lazy consensus" dictates that teams do not care about these games, but modern football history tells a completely different story.
Look at Germany in 2006. After losing a heartbreaking semi-final to Italy on home soil, Jurgen Klinsmann’s side did not sulk. They used the third-place match against Portugal to unleash a young Bastian Schweinsteiger, who scored two absolute screamers. That game did not feel like a funeral; it felt like a christening. It set the emotional and tactical foundation for the team that would eventually lift the World Cup eight years later.
Look at Croatia. A country of less than four million people has repeatedly used these matches to cement their status as global football royalty. Their 1998 third-place victory over the Netherlands is still spoken of with mythical reverence in Zagreb. Their 2022 bronze medal was not celebrated as a consolation; it was celebrated with a massive street parade.
The idea that these games do not matter is a highly anglo-centric, elite-nation bias. For 90% of the countries on earth, finishing third in a major tournament is an historic achievement. For a manager like Deschamps, who has spent his entire career managing the absurdly high expectations of the French public, it is a chance to keep his squad grounded in reality.
The Media’s Real Problem
Why does the press hate this game so much? It is simple: it ruins their pre-written obituaries.
When a giant like France or Germany exits a tournament in the semi-finals, the media has a very specific script to follow. The headlines are supposed to be about "Crisis," "The End of an Era," and "Who Will Replace the Manager?"
A third-place match interrupts this drama. It forces the team to stay in camp for another four days. It forces the journalists to write about football instead of gossip. It dilutes the clean, tragic narrative of a semi-final defeat by introducing a match where the players might actually smile, try some creative tricks, and remember why they started playing the game in the first place.
If Deschamps were to come out and agree with the media, saying the game is a waste of time, he would be betraying his players. The fringe squad members who have spent five weeks training hard, eating clean, and sitting on the bench deserve their moment on the pitch. To call their opportunity "meaningless" is an insult to the professional sacrifices they make just to be part of the setup.
Stop Demanding Perfection from a Broken Calendar
We live in an era where players are being run into the ground by a congested, greedy football calendar. The introduction of expanded tournaments and bloated club schedules is a genuine threat to player health.
But if we are going to fight against useless matches, we are aiming our weapons at the wrong target.
Do not attack the third-place playoff of a major tournament—a game that represents the culmination of a month of elite competition. Instead, attack the endless mid-season friendlies, the commercial summer tours across North America and Asia, and the newly expanded club tournaments designed solely to generate television revenue.
The consolation match is not the problem. It is the one moment in the international calendar where the pressure is off, the football is historically open and attacking, and a manager can actually manage instead of just surviving.
Didier Deschamps is not crazy for being happy to play this game. The media is just lazy for wanting to go home early.
