The short answer: If they do, they’re not saying it.
As Ibrahima Konate of France and now Real Madrid put it: ‘Not one of us want to play this game for third place, but we don’t have the choice,
Or how about Gareth Southgate when we reached this stage in 2018? ‘The honest thing is it’s not a game any team wants to play in.’
Or maybe Louis van Gaal in 2014? ‘This match should never be played. I’ve been saying that for 10 years; it’s unfair.
‘The worst thing is that there is a chance you are going to lose twice in a row.
‘And in a tournament in which you have played so marvellously well you go home as a loser.’
Even Walid Regragui, the manager of Morocco in 2022, who went as far as the semi-finals for the first time then, described coming third as a ‘booby prize’.
