They're not writing much in Paris these days about the Irish leg of the Tour de France - in fact this morning's Parisian press carried no more than a couple of cursory paragraphs about the race.

That ought not be construed, however, as an indictment of the decision to bring the event to Ireland. Rather, it is a measure of the inordinate urgency attaching to tomorrow's meeting of France and Croatia in the World Cup semi-final and the aspirations of a country to a long-cherished ambition in international sport.

Popular opinion is that the French will never have a better chance of winning the trophy and the quickening pulse of a people in waiting is reflected in the national press.

Football hasn't always held such magnetic appeal for a nation of catholic sporting tastes. But then, this is no ordinary event - and there has been £940 million of French money, more than 60 per cent of it provided by the exchequer, invested in the event to prove that. That has been the cost of presenting the biggest extravaganza in the country's history.

When tents are folded and the 16th World Cup championship is consigned to history after the final in the Stade de France next Sunday evening, they will have a pristine, state-of-the-art stadium, costing £115m, and seven upgraded arenas in the provinces to show for the expenditure.

But money doesn't necessarily buy success in international football and nobody here disputes the fact that it requires a home victory to put the imprimatur of approval on the whole production.

Were this a club championship, Aime Jacquet, the French coach, would be able to solve one of his most urgent problems by using a fraction of the overall budget to help deliver the result coveted by millions of his compatriots.

But the base bartering of club football doesn't apply now and Jacquet must soldier on with what he's got in the hope that at least one of his ineffective strikers will run into form in the last week of the competition.

His defence is one of the best in the world and in Zinedine Zidane, Didier Deschamps and Emmanuel Petit, he has quality in depth in a midfield formation which has not been bettered in any of their five games to date.

As yet, however, his front line hasn't fired in the expected manner and different permutations involving Stephane Guivarc'h, Thierry Henry, David Trezequet and Christophe Dugarry have all failed to deliver.

That is a scenario which clouds their final push for the summit and Jacquet, entrusted with the responsibility of sating a nation's ambition, is all too aware of it.

"We haven't made use of our chances in either of our last two games and that is worrying," he says. "But the encouraging thing is that we are making chances. One day soon we will make them count."

However, the coach can only be too well aware that for him, no less than Guivarc'h and Henry, time is fast running out.

After arriving in the semi-finals almost unnoticed, Croatia have a lot going for them tomorrow. Not for them the withering pressures of playing in front of a home crowd and the paralysing fear of failure.

"Whatever happens now," says their coach Miroslav Blazevic, "my players are all heroes in their country. We still want to win the World Cup just as much as France, but I think the expectations are different in the two countries."

Blazevic's achievement has been to mould an efficient but scarcely flamboyant team into one capable of trading with profit in any company. And in the performances of goalkeeper Drazen Ladic he has cause for particular satisfaction.

Before setting down in France Ladic was perceived as one of the vulnerable players in the squad. Brilliant on his day but prone to costly inconsistencies, his form gave cause for deeply held concerns.

The coach's solution was to hire the best coaching expertise for goalkeepers in the country. And in four intensive weeks, Ladic lost seven pounds in body weight and, more importantly, the self-doubt which had impoverished his displays earlier in the year.

That was a substantial coup for the man in charge. So, too, was his achievement in getting Davor Suker on the same wavelength as the remainder of the team. For all his reputation in club football, Suker had not been regarded as one of the most industrious of players.

Against Germany in last Saturday's memorable quarter-final tie in Lyon, however, he was ranging across the width of the pitch and was responsible in large measure for the destruction of the opposing defence in the second half.

Yesterday, Blazevic took his players to thermal baths to replenish tired bodies after Saturday's herculean effort. He promises that they will be in sufficiently good shape to provide the most authentic test yet of France's challenge for the title.