I miss Zizou

Half-way through France's first game and they still haven't scored. My mum and I have been doing errands, drifting in and out of the room, not paying a lot of attention to a game that should be an easy win for les bleus. Finally, a tad confused, we check online, and realize that Henry is out with a "mystery injury". Crap.

The French have been sitting on their laurels for far too long; they had, until two years ago, both Zizou's sheer genius and Henry's languid magic to win games for them. (One of the funniest things in football is to watch Henry's face when he fails to score. It happens so rarely that I think he is not angry, or sad, or frustrated, when it does; just genuinely confused.) Deprived of both, the French are apparently unable to do anything useful or constructive, like get the ball going in the right direction.

Ok, I'm being a little hard on them. Their defense is still solid. But aren't you always hardest on those you love?