The time for talking is almost up and in a few hours we’ll see who has what it takes to win a World Cup. Italy seem to be the slight favourites with the bookies and most of the football pundits I’ve heard.

The end of the road is in sight for Zinedine Zidane and has any player signed off a fabulous career in such a way.

France are in the World Cup Final against everybody but Domenech’s expectations, unbeaten in six games and we still haven’t seen the best of Thierry Henry.

It wasn’t the prettiest game but Les Bleus got the job done without any of the main players picking up a ban for the final, now they can really go for it and send Zidane out on the highest of highs.

That’s what it says on the side of the French team bus and the squad needs another big effort tonight against Portugal to make it reality.

The French players got a Hollywood welcome in Munich when Thierry Henry and Lilian Thuram met up with director Spike Lee who’s a friend of Henry’s and has been to Highbury to watch him play for Arsenal a few times.

France are on a high following their two great wins over Spain and Brazil and an interesting fact is that’s the first time Raymond Domenech has picked the same team in successive matches.

The French players were out for a little bike ride Sunday to get the stiffness out of their legs after last night’s game, appropriate as the Tour de France crossed into Germany for a while today. The focus tomorrow will switch to Wednesday’s semifinal with Portugal, who France have a pretty good record [...]

Allez Les Bleus! What a brillant game France played, a totally deserved win.
Zinedine Zidane showed tonight what a great player he is, completely bossing the game, looking in total control and enjoying it. What a contrast to Ronaldinho who was pretty anonymous though that was not entirely his fault, France were just set up [...]

Raymond Domenech is being bullish in the build up to tonight’s quarterfinal with Brazil in Frankfurt.