Uruguay and France Dissapoint

I expected this match to be a well-played, hard-fought, attack-and-defend ninety minutes. It was anything but. Uruguay, except for maybe two decent scoring chances, decided to group themselves deep in their territory to try and contain France's attacks.

It was a good defensive display by the Uruguayans. But the lack of offensive commitment almost goes against their hard-earned warrior-like reputation.

The French were able to constantly and almost continually play on the edge of the Uruguayan eighteen, but that was as far as they could get to. They lacked ideas and manpower to destroy that backline and was almost always finding Ribery alone in the push-forward commitment. Not enough for a team that is fighting really hard -and struggling in their efforts- to find an identity amongst a star-studded side which barely made it into the World Cup finals.

For Uruguay, one missed chance in each half by Diego Forlan would be all they could come up with. Not very much of creation in the midfield nor penetration up front for this team, which will have to change quite a bit in their remaining two matches should they expect to make it past the group stage.

France actually looked quite a bit better than they had in their last several friendlies where they were struggling to find their best form. Still it was not enough, and head coach Domenech is going to have to think long and hard about what he can do -if anything- to avoid the embarrassment of not making it out of group play.