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France and England each came up short in their respective quests to win the 2026 World Cup. Nonetheless, each side will have one more battle before it heads home from the tournament.
Les Bleus and the Three Lions are squaring off Saturday, July 18 in the tournament’s third-place match. It isn’t totally clear whether France and England will play their stars during the match, but plenty will be at stake if they do.
Notably, Kylian Mbappé is battling Lionel Messi for the 2026 World Cup’s Golden Boot. The third-place match will count toward the scoring total – which is currently level at eight goals apiece – but Mbappé can put pressure on Messi if the 27-year-old Frenchman is able to score against England.
Without knowing the respective strategies of Didier Deschamps and Thomas Tuchel for Saturday’s match, it’s hard to know exactly what to expect in the third-place game. Nonetheless, USA TODAY asked AI chatbot Microsoft Copilot to predict the outcome of the penultimate match of the 2026 World Cup.
The chatbot was fed the following queries to generate its analysis for the match:
Here’s a breakdown of Copilot’s prediction for the World Cup’s third-place match, along with a brief, human-crafted analysis of the chatbot’s pick:
AI’s take: Copilot is running under the assumption that France and England will both play their starters. That led the chatbot to back Les Bleus, expressing confidence in the team’s “strong attack” and the combination of Mbappé and Ousmane Dembélé on the attack.
Copilot also opined England might have trouble overcoming an “emotionally difficult to shake off” loss to Argentina in the semifinal.
Our take: This match could be higher-scoring than Copilot is predicting if only because the top players for each side may not play in this match – or at least not the entirety of it. Nonetheless, it’s hard to argue with the chatbot’s analysis about France being better equipped to win this one.
France is a deep side and should be motivated to win the third-place match in what figures to be the farewell match for Deschamps, the team’s longtime manager. That, plus the demoralizing nature of England’s loss to Argentina and the extra day of rest Les Bleus will get before Saturday’s match, should allow France to end its tournament with a win.
As mentioned, Copilot believes France and England will play their starters in this match. As such, it’s no surprise to see the chatbot backing each of the teams’ top scorers to find the back of the net.
Here’s a look at Copilot’s predictions:
France scorers
England scorer
Copilot noted Mbappé felt like “the safest scorer prediction,” which makes sense considering his standing in the Golden Boot race.
