Home fires still burning

France are into the semi-finals of the World Cup on wobbly legs and Italy on their way home with bruised pride after a classic exercise in professionalism had condensed the match into a thing of chance.

The woes of the 1994 final against Brazil were revisited on Italy when Luigi Di Biagio struck the crossbar with his team's fifth and final penalty. Even before the ball came to earth again, delighted French players were charging towards goalkeeper Fabien Barthez to celebrate a reprieve of considerable dimensions.

Earlier, Bixente Lizarazu had missed from the spot to give the Italians first advantage in the shoot-out, but in parallel with England's misfortune at St Etienne last Tuesday, it was soon squandered when Demetrio Albertini's slovenly effort was saved by Barthez.

"This is the third time we've lost in a penalty shoot out - it must be some kind of curse," said the Italian coach Cesare Maldini. "France are a good team with the advantage of playing in front of a home crowd, but it's still a difficult defeat to accept."

That France deserved to go through was scarcely in question. Given the freedom of midfield to rake the Italian lines from the kick-off, they provided the bulk of the goalmouth excitement in a game which played on the nerves with unpitying frequency.

And yet, for the second consecutive occasion, they lacked a player with the cutting edge to break an inevitable stalemate. For all their resources in other areas it's a weakness which threatens to come between Aime Jacquet and contented sleep in the approach to a semi-final meeting with either Germany or Croatia.

Cruelly for Italy there will be no second chance for Cesare Maldini to redress the tactical errors which in the end brought about their undoing. Imprisoned by caution, they were eliminated without ever making concessions to adventure. And that was the most wounding blow of all on a joyless day for Italian football.

What might have happened had they thrown more players forward will forever be a matter of conjecture. Suffice to say that in two isolated moments of ambition they came significantly closer to scoring than the toothless French.

Christian Vieri, lurking at the far post, might have hit the target when Francesco Moriero's cross invited the decisive finish after only eight minutes and, then, with the game in extra-time, Roberto Baggio got in behind the defence.

Forced to take Albertini's cross on the volley, however, he got his angles marginally wrong and the sense of relief in the Stade de France in that moment was such that you could almost almost reach out and touch it.

Baggio, dredging up one last defiant performance in an outstanding career, had gone some way towards retrieving the game for Italy with his arrival as a 67thminute substitute for Alessandro del Piero. And on a day enriched by some brave individual performances, his decision to volunteer for his team's first penalty was high on the list.

In Pasadena four years ago, his flawed penalty handed the trophy to Brazil. Yet, when Cesare Maldini enlisted his five volunteers for yesterday's drama, Baggio's was the first hand showing. And with the mark of a man who has never shirked responsibility, he hit the shot with absolute conviction into the bottom left hand corner of Barthez's net.

In the sense that both coaches had warned against the folly of expecting an open, flowing game, nobody should have been surprised by the plot. And yet, it hadn't prepared us fully for the sheer intensity of the tackling, the towering commitment which gave the game most of the merit it held.

Typical was Barthez's leap on to the boot of Vieri as the Italian was about to pull the trigger for the first-half goal which would have coloured the game profoundly. The goalkeeper, grimacing in pain, needed time to regain his composure after that, but the extent of his recovery was reflected in his pivotal role in the shoot-out.

The great strength of this French team resides in its defence. Marcel Desailly, big and imposing, fits comfortably into any list of the best centre backs in the competition and, alongside him, Laurent Blanc was positively miserly when it came to affording space to the hapless del Piero.

With Didier Deschamps and Zinedine Zidane varying the tempo and the tactics and Emmanuel Petit effective in short, sharp bursts, they will not concede much in midfield either, but thereafter their story is not a happy one.

Hopes that last Sunday's laboured performance against Paraguay was a one off were not realised and, even now, there must be grave doubts if a team with such a threadbare attack can go all the way to football's summit.

The pattern was established early on with Zidane's elegant skills twice giving him chances only for his finish to desert him and when Gianluca Pagliuca hurled himself across his line to keep out Petit's effort shortly afterwards, a sense of inevitability was already beginning to settle on the game.

France can claim that they are not likely to encounter a better defence than Italy provided yesterday. Fabio Cannavoro, making light of a facial injury, was quite magnificent and yet only fractionally shaded Alessandro Costacurta and Giuseppe Bergomi for the individual honours.

In spite of Di Biagio's industry, the losers didn't have a player of Zidane's presence in midfield.

However, one suspects, it's going to take a lot more than this for France to leave this stadium with the trophy a week tomorrow.

"We knew what to expect with the Italians, we knew we would have to be careful every second," Jacquet said afterwards. "For three-quarters of the match, we played with a lot of concentration and dominated both tactically and technically. Then it became more difficult, but in the end the best team won, even if penalties are always a bit of a lottery."

Roberto Baggio said he would have preferred to have lost in normal time or on a golden goal. "Unfortunately this is the third time for me. It leaves a very bitter taste. Penalties are the worst way of all to lose," Baggio said.