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With a successor already been named to take the reins of affairs
off him after the World Cup, French coach, Raymond Domenech, will today try to
shame his critics as he leads the ‘Les Blues’ out against U.ruguay in the
second match in this year’s World Cup Finals tournament in South Africa.

Both France and Uruguay made their way to the World Cup via the
back door after missing out on automatic qualification from their respective
regions and had to bank on playoffs to make it to South Africa. For France, who
only narrowly made the finals after controversially beating Ireland through a
dubious goal tagged the ‘Hand of Henry,’ they will be looking to prove this
isn’t going to be another poor World Cup for them.

Despite previous good performances, winning the World Cup in
‘98, and coming second in 2006, they have also had their less glorious moments,
such as their famously terrible run in 2002, where the holders of the cup went
out in the group stages without scoring a single goal; the first time in
football history this had happened.

Unimpressive preparations

However their warm-up matches were anything but impressive; with
a narrow win over Costa Rica being followed by a draw with Tunisia and a defeat
to China. Things aren’t right yet in the French camp to outrightly suggest them
to turn it around against Uruguay, who may turn out to be their toughest
opponents in Group A.

The South Americans have a weak defence, but a formidable attack
which contains two very good strikers in Diego Forlan and Luis Suarez, and one
of them should be able to break through against a French defence that has
conceded in each of its last five outings. If Uruguay is unable to beat France,
they would definitely be happy with a draw. France has never beaten Uruguay in
the World Cup. La Celeste Olímpica beat Les Bleus 2-1 in the group stages of
England 1966. France’s impotent run during the 2002 World Cup continued against
Uruguay with a 0-0 draw.