England can find joy and meaning in the third place playoff. Others have

The third place playoff is the last place most footballers want to find themselves. Scheduled so soon after their fondest dreams have been shattered, the tie inspires widespread dread. To the manager of Holland at last year’s men’s World Cup, it felt akin to forcing his troops into battle after the war had already been lost. ”This match should never be played, I’ve been saying that for 10 years; it’s unfair,” sighed Louis van Gaal.

Van Gaal’s objections did not stop his team from inflicting a 3-0 defeat on Brazil, who, in the wake of their semi-final massacre by Germany, had been hoping to apply some sort of dressing to the bloody gaping hole where their dignity used to be – although, in truth, it would have been understandable if most of them would have preferred to just go straight out and get plastered. Or to lie down and weep, again. Because to wallow is natural. But a fat lot of good it ever does. Far better to get straight back up and go again, even if it feels like cycling home after flunking your driving test. That, at least, is one argument for holding third place playoffs. And that is the challenge facing semi-final losers: to find an argument to play the next match. If it seems pointless, make a point.

England women’s manager Mark Sampson has the right idea. “We can’t win the World Cup, so England v Germany is the next best thing,” he said before his team’s Saturday night date with the other country that fell agonisingly short of the World Cup final. “We’re determined to do something we’ve never done before and beat them.” Laura Bassett, if she plays, will surely be even more highly motivated, because she won’t want her last touch against Japan to be her last touch in the tournament even if, alas, it risks being the one that lives longest in the memory. Germany, meanwhile, will be fuelled by a desire to bid a winning farewell to Silvia Neid, their much-admired manager who steps down after a decade of success. Saturday’s match will not be what defines her career with her country, but if it has to finish with an anti-climax, then might as well end it on a good footnote.

Some cherished feats have been performed by teams or players who gave themselves a point to prove. Rather than pay homage to the claim by the old baseballer Tom Seaver that “there are two places: first place and no place”, the men of Croatia (1998) and Turkey (2002) chose to offer a different take on the true competitive spirit and played to the belief that third, while not first, is better than fourth. Fine victories ensued, as well as the fastest goal in World Cup history thanks to Hakan Sukur’s strike against South Korea after 11 seconds.

Others, of course, have gone out with a point to prove and failed tellingly; in 1982, just 48 hours after their harrowing semi-final defeat by West Germany, France had to drag themselves out for a duel with Poland that many considered redundant. The manager, Michel Hidalgo, made seven changes to his starting lineup and gave a start to goalkeeper Jean Casteneda, whose absence up to that point had been cited by critics as one of the reasons why France had not reached the final. Casteneda was at fault for two of three of Poland’s goals, suggesting Hidalgo had been right to put his trust in Jean-Luc Ettori. Similarly, sort of, Roberto Baggio might have convinced Peter Shilton in 1990 that after the third place playoff was the right time to retire.

And then there is the Golden Boot. The German team-mates Cilia Sasic and Anja Mittag, currently the top two in the scoring charts, could have an opportunity to outdo each other while racking up a tally that no player from either of the finalists, USA and Japan, could catch. Salvatore Schillaci, Davor Suker and Thomas Müller have all been proud recipients of the men’s Golden Boot thanks to goals in the third place playoff, while Juste Fontaine was only able to establish his all-time record for the number of goals (13) in a single World Cup by hitting four in the 1958 third place playoff.

It has been argued that such goals should not count, as they are scored in matches that do not matter as much and in which teams tend to play looser and are, by definition, not as good as the ones in the final. Sandor Koscis, whose record Fontaine eclipsed, might have scored more than 11 if his next match after the semi-final had been the third place playoff rather than the final.

Uefa apparently does not believe in manufacturing new meaning after semi-final defeats. There has been no third place playoff at the women’s Euros since 1993, and in the men’s the match was abolished after just one try, even though Czechoslovakia’s victory over Italy in 1980 featured a grandiose penalty shoot-out and a stonking goal from Ladislav Jurkemik, who ran on to a corner to thrash the ball into the net from 25 yards, past Dino Zoff, no less. That’s the thing about third placed playoffs, they may not matter to many, but they consistently produce great entertainment.

Michael Ballack may have been caught yawning on the bench during the 2006 third place playoff, but he cheered with everyone else when Bastian Schweinsteiger later walloped two swirling pearlers into the net. And if there had been no third place playoff in 1978, then there would have been no Nelhinho and that thing of beauty will be a joy forever. What more meaning do you need?