france is a good team with great players and a stupid coach. but in the end, there’s only so much a manager can do without it being the fault of the players. although domenech is a moron, it doesn’t mean that the talent and play of malouda, gallas, abidal, anelka etc. will lose out to the inexperienced opponents of south africa, uruguay and mexico.

Ireland had a hope of beating france because they have great players (in comparison to mexico, uruguay, south africa) and more than that they had trappatoni at the helm who in my opinion is the 6th best international manager in the world at the moment (the top 6 being: 1.Del Bosque 2.Hiddink 3.Fabio Cappello 4.Lippi 5.Ottmar Hitzfeld 6. Trappatoni)

also, the colors were pretty much blinding.
however in the end, the article was well-written, which made it all the more damaging to my retinas (honestly the colors were painful) and the world cup is notorious for having shock victories from underdog countries. but it is my belief that france will hang on to win in this tournament, primarily because of the talent of the players. Despite the euro failure, this fixture list provides three teams that are eager, but inexperienced and rather wanting in talent, unlike the euro fixtures of italy, and holland. Romania is very similiar to uruguay, but that’s where the comparisons end. Ribery is a fantastic talisman and will orchestrate the offence with pace and trickery this year, and abidal and mexes will hold the line as gallas goes up to score a goal or two. Henry is a mystery due to his mediocre club form, benzema as well, but anelka will drop wide to provide width, or will move in deep to score, and malouda will be his usual goal-scoring-goal-providing-magnificent self. i have full confidence in a france finish.

http://mexico.footballblog.co.uk/