It’s all over! Belgium finish third at the World Cup – there best ever finish at the tournament. For England, the tournament finishes on a low note but there’s still plenty to be proud of from this tournament for Gareth Southgate and his squad. – Skysports<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Belgium have taken the bronze medal, they very least they deserve from a strong campaign. England finish fourth, equalling their best ever achievement at an overseas World Cup and surpassing all reasonable people\u2019s pre-tournament predictions. Having said that, given how the draw panned out, this was a par result. Beyond results, however, they played or at least acted with a personality that rekindled their country\u2019s affection for their national team and that will be the abiding memory for them from the 2018\u00a0World Cup<\/a>. – The Guardian<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n England’s World Cup campaign ended in disappointing fashion as they were beaten by Belgium in the third-place play-off in St Petersburg.<\/p>\n Gareth Southgate’s side delivered the Three Lions’ best showing at the tournament since 1990 but finished with back-to-back losses after the agonising 2-1 semi-final defeat in extra time against Croatia.<\/p>\n Belgium missed out on reaching their first final when they were beaten by France in the last four, but full-back Thomas Meunier, who was suspended for the previous game, slotted in Saturday’s opening goal from close range after just four minutes.<\/p>\n Captain Eden Hazard was impressive throughout the contest and scored his side’s second goal with seven minutes remaining.<\/p>\n Midfielder Kevin de Bruyne forced Jordan Pickford into a fine one-handed save shortly after and the Everton goalkeeper also made a sharp save to keep out Meunier’s thumping volley.<\/p>\n England looked flat after their efforts on Wednesday and were second best in the opening period, before threatening to find a breakthrough in the second half.<\/p>\n Eric Dier’s low drive was comfortable for Thibaut Courtois and Dier then had a dinked shot brilliantly cleared off the line by Tottenham team-mate Toby Alderweireld.<\/p>\n As Belgium striker Romelu Lukaku failed to find the net, it means opposite number Harry Kane, who came closest to netting by scuffing a shot wide, continues to lead the Golden Boot race with six goals.<\/p>\n The World Cup final takes place in Moscow on Sunday (kick-off 16:00 BST), with 1998 champions France taking on Croatia.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n BBC Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s all over! Belgium finish third at the World Cup – there best ever finish at the tournament. For England, the tournament finishes on a low note but there’s still plenty to be proud of from this tournament for Gareth Southgate and his squad. – Skysports – Belgium have taken the bronze medal, they very …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2687,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2685\/revisions\/2687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}