Preview
Uruguay and France will kick off their World Cup campaign in Cape Town. The group A match is a collision between two former World Champions: Uruguay has won the tournament twice (1930 and 1950) while France were crowned World Champions once, in 1998.
Both countries struggled to make it to South Africa: both needed play-offs to secure their World Cup tickets, La Celeste beat Costa Rica (0-1, 1-1) while Thierry Henry's famous hand ball guided Les Bleus past sorry Ireland in the European play-offs.
Both countries will meet each other for the third time at the World Cup stage. In 1966 Uruguay were the better team as they downed France in the group stage (2-1). Eight years ago, Thierry Henry's red card highlighted their group match which ended 0-0 and initiated France's elimination.
France and coach Raymond Domenech suffered a lot of citicism ahead of the tournament. Domenech was criticised for not including Manchester City's Patrick Vieira and Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema in his World Cup squad. The disappointing results ahead of the tournament will no doubt worry Domenech, who saw how his side only managed to draw against Tunisia (1-1) while they were stunned by China: 1-0.
To add to Domenech's problems, William Gallas has refused to speak to the French media for the whole tournament and Florent Malouda, Djibril Cisse and Sidney Govou have all questioned their coach's tactics, although he has not been helped by the injury-enforced withdrawal of defensive midfielder Lassana Diarra.
With France seemingly in disarray, it looks to be the perfect opportunity for Uruguay to start the tournament at a high. Coach Oscar Tabarez has little worries as he has a fully fit squad with Diego Forlan returning from a minor injury.
He will pair up with Luis Suarez up front, as Tabarez already revealed his starting XI, two days before the match. European top clubs will keep an eye on Suarez as he made a name for himself by scoring 35 times for Ajax this season. Along with Atletico Madrid hitman Forlan he will be a plague for France's back line which is likely to feature Gallas alongside Eric Abidal at the centre.
A remarkable duo as Abidal is used to play at the left-back position at his club, Barcelona. We will see what the consequence of this decision will be when Uruguay and France kick off at 20.30 CET.
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