\n<\/p>\n
Both England and France succumbed to defeat in the 2026 World Cup semi-finals as they were beaten by Argentina and Spain, respectively. But which of their players would make it into a combined XI?<\/strong><\/p>\n Of course, no-one wants to play in a World Cup 3rd place playoff. It\u2019s a losers\u2019 game \u2013 whilst it provides a way for teams to regain a bit of pride, it also reminds them over their overarching failure and heartbreak.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, let\u2019s begin. Like with our combined lineup between Spain and Argentina, we\u2019ll be basing this XI on players\u2019 performances during the World Cup, rather than how good they have been throughout their careers.<\/p>\n This one is a bit of a no-brainer. Mike Maignan is a fine goalkeeper, but Jordan Pickford, on his day, is amongst the world\u2019s best. He wasn\u2019t perfect at the World Cup, but still managed to pull off some wonderful saves.<\/p>\n This was much tougher. While we considered Reece James, we ultimately went with Jules Kounde on account of consistency. This isn\u2019t James\u2019 fault, as he was injured for a portion of the campaign, but Kounde must take his spot nonetheless.<\/p>\n England\u2019s best centre-back by a decent margin, Marc Guehi was a reliable hand throughout the tournament. As solid as a rock on the ground and in their air, the Manchester City man made very few mistakes during England\u2019s World Cup run.<\/p>\n Dayot Upamecano was seen as a bit of a shaky hand before the World Cup, but he put all of those fears to bed this year. France might have led a relatively disappointing effort, but Upamecano cannot be faulted for his performances.<\/p>\n \n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Both England and France succumbed to defeat in the 2026 World Cup semi-finals as they…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}GK: Jordan Pickford<\/h2>\n
RB: Jules Kounde<\/h2>\n
CB: Marc Guehi<\/h2>\n
CB: Dayot Upamecano<\/h2>\n