France-Italy, Spain-Iceland

The current French team presents a problem for me. I love France, a beautiful country with extraordinary culture, society and cuisine. I have close relatives who live there. And France has produced some fantastic players over the last decade: Zidane of course, but also Thuram, Vieira, Ribery, Djorkaeff, Henry, etc. etc. I even liked Stephane Guivarch'h.

But I find the current French team incredibly frustrating to watch and it's mainly down to coach Raymond Domenech. They play with two defensive midfielders, usually only one committed forward, and outside backs who are very conservative in gettnig forward. The attacking players that they do have--such as Henry, Ribery, Nasri and Malouda--are so good that they often offset this philosophy. But nonetheless the philosophy is still there.

At least yesterday there was a good reason for it: they came to get a draw in Italy, and they got it. With ease. The problem is that they always play that way. I wish that Domenech would give Vieira a little more license to get forward, and get the outside backs into attack more frequently.

So yes, the big match yesterday was all a bit drab. Is it me or is the Italian attack looking very old all of a sudden.

I actually used to live in Iceland, so I was very excited to see them get the result in Reykjavik, although it's a shame about that tying goal. (In fact, I saw my first soccer game at that stadium: NY Cosmos vs Valur in the early 80s) With Northern Ireland losing in Latvia, it shouldn't make much difference to Spain; as long as they can stay within two points of them before their final match against the Irish in Spain, they're going to be favored to go through.

For Italy, it's more tricky. I think they have to win in the Ukraine.