Another three Manchester United players have bowed out of this winter’s World Cup after England were eliminated by France in a tight affair on Saturday evening.
Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw were both named in the starting line-up by Gareth Southgate, whilst Raphael Varane continued to lead from the back for France.
It was Didier Deschamps’ men who took an early lead in the game and Les Bleus held their advantage into half-time but it didn’t take long after the interval before the scores were level, courtesy of a penalty from Harry Kane.
With roughly 15 minutes to play, France reclaimed their lead through Olivier Giroud. Just moments later, Kane was handed the chance to equalise from the spot again but this time, the Tottenham star missed and thus failed to surpass Wayne Rooney in the England goalscoring charts. As things stand, both forwards have scored 53 goals.
Marcus Rashford was a late substitute and the 25-year-old nearly equalised with the last kick of the game but his free-kick sizzled over the crossbar.
United were well-represented at the quarter-final stage, with a whopping 11 Reds featuring in the final eight. Four games later, the majority have been eliminated and only Varane and Lisandro Martinez remain.
France will now face Morocco in what is a highly-anticipated semi-final, with Martinez’s Argentina set to battle it out against Croatia next week.
Varane and Martinez are now both guaranteed to stay in Qatar for two more games, with the losers of the semi-finals playing a third-place play-off game on the eve of Sunday’s grand final.
