France do little to inspire young fans

France ... 0 Romania ... 0SOME OF the kids who were brought to this game wearing shirts bearing the name of Zinedine Zidane looked too young to remember how the then French skipper hauled Raymond Domenech's side through the knock-out stages to the World Cup final a couple of years ago almost, it seemed, by the strength of his own will alone.

You can count on one thing, though, the youngsters will have been brought up to speed on the relevant facts by their elders after the team's lamentable contribution to a hugely disappointing game in Zurich yesterday.

Certainly nobody could have accused Romania coach Victor Piturca of being unreasonable when he said: "Personally, I would have wanted the three points since France may no longer be at the level they used to be. You could see that today."

Piturca acknowledged, nevertheless, the draw had been a fair result and Domenech wasn't arguing. "We know it is a complicated group and Romania are not there to do anybody any favours," he said. "We were nervous, we couldn't express ourselves fully but it's often like that in the first match.

"The situation we're in now," he continued, "is that every match will be a knock-out round. If we play with too much caution, something will be missing at the end. There are two matches left and six points to take. I'm neither pessimistic nor optimistic."

This was, from the outset, a grim affair, with the French looking to be playing well within themselves against a Romanian side that showed more ambition but not the ability to make that count for something.

Early on, they squandered a couple of chances, with Adrian Mutu and Daniel Niculae both rushing mid-range shots when there was time to do better and towards the end they might have nicked it. But for the most part they simply didn't look good enough.

Though Domenech's back four didn't always impress when under pressure, Claude Makelele and Jeremy Toulalan did enough in central midfield to ensure that further chances were thin on the ground and for all the supporters' excitement every time Mutu came within shooting distance on goal, Gregory Coupet remained an onlooker.

"The positive thing is that Greg did not have one save to make," Domenech said. "We managed to control the match, but we were not dangerous enough."

The three times champions, though, were far from awe-inspiring even if Franck Ribery did enough to show why Chelsea are so keen on signing him. The Bayern Munich midfielder may have some way to go before justifying the tag of Zidane's successor but his contribution here was still impressive until Domenech changed things to accommodate Samir Nasri, pushing him up front and effectively removing him from the proceedings.

While Ribery had looked to open up the Romanians from the right or centre through the first 70-odd minutes, Florent Malouda largely failed to make an impact on the left flank, with just one shot of note - narrowly over the angle after 49 minutes - to show for his efforts and neither striker impressed.

To judge by the endless speculation, half of the stadium's VIP seats might have been filled with officials from big clubs weighing up precisely how much to offer for Karim Benzema, but few would feel entirely comfortable writing a fun-sized cheque on the basis of what we saw here.

Nicolas Anelka did little better, with the 29-year-old getting on the end of a few more chances, but he barely managed to get a single effort on target.

Given the result and pattern of the game then, it was no great surprise that it was the Romanian supporters who were on their feet, cheering at the final whistle. The French end looked much like it had done after group stage draws with Switzerland and South Korea at the last World Cup. But that, of course, was before Zizou started to do his thing.

FRANCE:Coupet; Sagnol, Thuram, Gallas, Abidal; Ribery, Toulalan, Makelele, Malouda; Benzema (Nasri, 77 mins), Anelka (Gomis, 72 mins).

ROMANIA:Lobont; Contra, Tamas, Goian, Rat; Nicolita, Cocis (Codrea, 63 mins), Chivu, Radoi (Dica, 92 mins); D Niculae, Mutu (M Niculae, 78 mins).

Referee:M Mejuto Gonzalez (Spain).