Honduras' defender Maynor Figueroa, left, jumps on the back of France's Karim Benzema to win the ball. Photograph: Luis Acosta/AFP/Getty Images Photograph: LUIS ACOSTA/AFP/Getty Images
Honduras' defender Maynor Figueroa, left, jumps on the back of France's Karim Benzema to win the ball. Photograph: Luis Acosta/AFP/Getty Images Photograph: LUIS ACOSTA/AFP/Getty Images
Well, after all that, it was quite good fun. But we can only say that because none of the France players lost a leg which, at one stage, looked pretty likely. They did pretty well to keep their cool and not get one of their own sent off, although Paul Pogba had a damn good go. They managed to play some decent football among all the violence mind, with the front three of Griezmann, Valbuena and Benzema particularly impressive. Hats off to them, and hats off to you for sticking with this one. Cheers, and goodnight.
90 mins + 2: Some football of note breaks out, as Evra's low cross is blocked out to Matuidi, and he blazes a shot over with the power of a Honduras reducer.
87 mins: At a conservative estimate, if it had been a Premier League ref in charge of this one - Mike Dean, say - there would have been at least four red cards.
83 mins: Oh man, spoke too soon about the kicking - Garrido gets Matuidi knee-high on the follow-through to one challenge, and he 'earns' but a yellow card. While this definitely fits with Chris Rock's routine about getting praise for things you're supposed to do, it's pretty impressive that more French players haven't completely lost their shit about some of the treatment they're getting.
81 mins: By the way, you're not missing much in the game. Just a bit of passing around - Honduras haven't even kicked anyone in the last five minutes or so. Ye gads.
Here's Bernardo Sousa: "If we are talking about violence in WC matches, you chose the wrong Portugal match. Yes, in 1966 we took out Pelé so that was a nice feat, but in 2006 we defeated the Netherlands with a record 16 yellow cards and 4 red cards. Anyway, Portugal won both matches, so at least when we use violence in an useful manner, unlike Honduras in this match.
77 mins: Oh, and there's the last French change - Olly Giroud replaces Matty Valbuena.
Meanwhile, Richard Harland notes: "You'd have thought- given all his years commentating on Robot Wars- that Jonathan Pearce would have a better understanding of how technology works."
76 mins: Evra's back on. Pearce added to his flamboyant commentary performance by informing us that France might have to go down to ten men as they've used all three of their subs. They have, of course, not.
72 mins: From the free kick, the ball pinballs around a bit then makes its way to Benzema just off the corner of the six yard box, and he unloads a shell of a right-footed shot into the roof of the net. Woof.
Benzema celebrates with Mathieu Debuchy and Mathieu Valbuena and midfielder Blaise Matuidi. Photograph: Juan Barreto/AFP/Getty Images Photograph: JUAN BARRETO/AFP/Getty Images
71 mins: Good lord, this is stupid now. Valbuena jinks down the right, beats Figueroa who simply hacks him down, knee height, Astonishingly, there's no booking. Shades of Portugal v Brazil in 1966, here.
66 mins: Colum Farrelly makes a decent point: "Valium might help but I think the French lads will need morphine for the pain of their injuries and not a few bandages."
64 mins: Oh bloody hell, Jonathan Pearce a) is now referring to the perfectly fine goal as 'controversial' and b) just announced a goal, after Matuidi very clearly put his shot into the side-netting. Maverick performance from Pearce, this.
62 mins: I was saying last night that the one thing this tournament has been missing has been some pointless, Italia 90 style violence. So cheers to Honduras for ticking that box - we've basically had everything you could possibly wish for in a tournament, and the first lot of games isn't even over yet.
59 mins: Dan Lucas, of this parish and who generally confines himself to the Other Sport of cricket, writes in: "Call this a DRS controversy, football? Pah."
58 mins: And a final change for Honduras, as Najar goes off, and Jorge Claros is on. A defensive midfielder for a winger might give you an idea of their mentality.
57 mins: Sub for France, and Pogba is replaced by Moussa Sissoko. Bit of an odd one unless a) Pogba is injured or b) the France bench think he might get sent off.
56 mins: Another chance - and this could get ugly for Honduras in a hurry, in case it isn't already because of all the fouling - as the ball breaks to Valbuena on the left side of the area, but his curling shot doesn't quite curl enough, and it goes wide.
53 mins: Substitute Boniek Garcia gets in the swing of things by taking Evra out with some gusto, and gets a yellow card. A bit like joining your pals who've been in the pub for five hours and trying to catch up with them.
52 mins: The confusion wasn't helped by the goalline replay firstly saying the first shot that hit the post wasn't over the line, which it wasn't, then telling us the rebound off Valladares was over the line, which...it might've been. And there's complaints from both managers, oddly. That said, nearly five minutes later, Jonathan Pearce still hasn't worked out what happened. It isn't that complicated, mush.
Honduras coach Luis Suarez and France coach Didier Deschamps argue about the second goal. Photograph: Andrew Couldridge/Action Images Photograph: Andrew Couldridge/Action Images
48 mins: Well, that was a bit weird. The ball is swung over from the right, Benzema left-foots it back across goal and it hits the post, it hits the Honduras keeper and the technology says it went just over the line. To be frank, if that was judged purely on the naked eye, it didn't look over, but we must trust the almighty machine, lest it become sentient and destroy us all.
46 mins: The game is underway again, and it only takes Honduras 40 seconds to get some rough-housing in, as Beckeles rakes down Valbuena's Achilles. Nice lads, these.
The teams are back out for the second period, and looks like a couple of changes for Honduras. Boniek Garcia is on for Bengtson, while Bernardez is replaced by Osman Chavez. The former tactical, the latter because of the injury the centre-back suffered late on in the first half.
Charles Antaki is back with some congratulations: "Well done, Wilson Palacios, for confirming his coach’s claim that they’re not violent, just have plenty of attitude. In the original Spanish that’s spelled k-i-c-k, b-a-r-g-e, a-n-d g-e-t s-e-n-t o-f-f."
Valbuena nearly scores with a free kick from tight on the left with the final act of the half, but that's the break, and France undoubtedly deserve their lead. Could be a long evening for the remaining Honduras players.
45 mins + 2: Lloris, desperate for something to do, dashes out to claim a long free kick into the box.
"It looked like a French player was in an offsides position when the penalty was called," says Ted Lee "If a player is in an offside position and doesn't have the ball, is he not technically offside?"
He will be deemed not to be interfering with play Ted, one assumes.
45 mins + 1: That was unforgivable from Palacios - a completely stupid, needless foul when he had been booked 15 minutes earlier. I take all that stuff about him being pleasant on the plane back.
Well, two minutes before the break, and that was stupid. A cross comes into the box finds Pogba's chest, but before he can control it further Palacios barges him over from behind. Easy call to give a penalty, and easy call to give the Honduras midfielder a second yellow card.
Wilson Palacios shunts Paul Pogba and gives away a penalty. Photograph: Jeff Gross/Getty Images Photograph: Jeff Gross/Getty Images
41 mins: Debuchy and Pogba do good work on the right side of the box and the former puts in a low cross, Bernardez blocks but seems to twist his knee in the process, and looks in some pain. The ball then drops to Benzema in space, but he chooses to narrow his own angle and shoot rather than passing to the better-positioned Matuidi.
40 mins: Palacios stitches Matuidi up like a home-made cushion with a delightful drag-back and skip in the middle of the park, but his sweeping crossfield pass looking for Espinoza is too long.
38 mins: "Zidane was one of the all-time greats," shrewdly notes Martin Keown on commentary. He's got some way to go before he matches Clarke Carlisle's Jackson Martinez/Ecuador gaffe from earlier, but to be fair to the lad he's giving it a good crack.
37 mins: Close for France, as Griezmann (probably their standout player so far) works some space superbly for Matuidi's leggy run into the box, but the midfielder's low cross is deflected out for a corner. It looked, for just a few seconds, like it might have deflected into the goal. But it didn't. So there.
35 mins: Maynor Figueroa tries to reprise that goal he scored for Wigan at Stoke a few years ago from just inside his own half, but the under-worked Hugo Lloris just peers at at the ball quizzically as it sails high, high over the bar.
33 mins: Cian McMahon, who'd like us to know that he's in Las Vegas, writes: "The Honduran horns remind me how much I miss complaining about the 2010 vuvuzelas."
They are rather annoying. Another aside: there have been refreshingly few references by the commentators/TV people to 'samba' and so forth. Well done (on this very small matter) TV people.
32 mins: It's been more or less all France so far, but Honduras have a couple of half attacks, one of which ends as Najar shanks a cross from the right way over the bar.
30 mins: As an aside, Palacios was on the same flight as me recently. Observations: he dealt with a three-hour delay with patience, and he has a handsome (non-Louis Vuitton) luggage set.
27 mins: Well, that had been coming. There's a fairly messy scrap between Palacios and Pogba with the latter on the floor and the former standing over him, and both men have at least two kicks at the other. The final one comes from Pogba, who takes his man down about five yards in front of the referee, and it looked for all the world like it would be at least one red card, but ref Ricci instead dishes out a pair of yellows.
France's Paul Pogba clashes with Wilson Palacios. Photograph: Murad Sezer/Reuters Photograph: MURAD SEZER/REUTERS
Pogba reacts to the initial challenge. Photograph: Rodrigo Buendia/AFP/Getty Images Photograph: RODRIGO BUENDIA/AFP/Getty Images
25 mins: Another big chance for France, as a wonderful sweeping move finds Valbuena on the right side of the box, clips back a cross and Benzema directs it towards goal, but it's saved. What a goal that would've been.
23 mins: Woodwork! Close for France, as Griezmann rises like a child's lost balloon in the area, gets his téte to the cross and smacks it against the bar. The rebound doesn't fall to Benzema, and Honduras just about escape.
22 mins: Valbuena advances towards the edge of the area and tries a one-two with Benzema, but the return is cut out. It falls to Cabaye, but he drags his shot just wide.
18 mins: Bernadez climbs all over the back of Benzema, but isn't penalised and injures himself, while Palacios rather justifiably complains about a kick to the knee, dished out by Valbuena. Bit of jazz to this game.
17 mins: Not only does Pogba have loads of legs, he has loads of arms too, and uses the latter to pull Palacios down as they go up for a header. Less of that please, Paul.
Paul Pogba fends off Emilio Izaguirre. Photograph: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images Photograph: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images
15 mins: What a save! The ball is crossed in by Valbuena and it falls to Matuidi, who strikes towards goal from around 12 yards with power, but Valladares flings up a hand to just tip it over the bar. Reactions.
A shot from France's Blaise Matuidi is turned onto the bar by the keeper. Photograph: David Vincent/AP Photograph: David Vincent/AP
14 mins: Yet another free kick wide on the right for France as Izaguirre takes out Valbuena right on the touchline. These three kicks have been so close together both on the pitch and in time that the ref's white foam (not a euphemism, mercifully) is still visible from the other two.
12 mins: France win another free kick in an almost identical position, but try something a little more traditional this time, as Valbuenca chucks an outswinging cross over. This time, Valladares comes out and punches it clear, if not entirely convincingly.
Jonathan Pearce then calls him a 'ledge', which will probably take the edge off his satisfaction a little.
10 mins: Quite a weird free kick, as Benzema pulls out to the edge of the box, and Valbuena fires the ball at his head. Benzema does his best to direct the header towards goal, but it was always, shall we say, an optimistic one.
9 mins: Valbuena makes more tracks down the right, flitting hither and thither, and Wilson Palacios drags him to the floor, giving the French a dangerous free kick on the right.
7 mins: Bit more joy from France down the right as Valbuena skips down the flank and whips over a low cross and Valladares doesn't exactly deal with it comfortably in the Honduras goal. He shovels it out as far as Najar just outside the area, who tries to break but is felled with some enthusiasm by Paddy Evra, who is unsurprisingly booked for his trouble.
6 mins: Debuchy hoys a cross into the box from the right, which Benzema goes up for, knocks it down and falls to Griezmann, but he slices his shot and it goes well wide.
2 mins: Blaise Matuidi, legs going all over the place, chases the ball down the right. Blimey there are some legs in this French midfield, with him and Paul Pogba. Miles of legs.
Oh, hang on. We should be listening to the anthems about now, but there seems to have been some sort of snafu, and the referee has told the players to shake hands and be done with it. The French fans are doing their own version of La Marseillaise.
The teams await the anthems, but the anthems never arrive. Photograph: JORGE ZAPATA/EPA Photograph: JORGE ZAPATA/EPA
The pomp, power and military bombast of La Marseillaise draws me into the history of France, and my own. The surname I was born with was French: D’Orsay; perhaps an ancestor was amongst those troops that marched to this evocative anthem for the first time as they entered Paris 200 years ago! I think also of my dear friend Charles Aznavour, he’s 90 now but we sang together on my latest album, Engelbert Calling. La Marseillaise sounds best ringing around a packed sports stadium. Its lyrics evoke revolution, conflict, taking up arms, preparing for the fight – everything my music does not! Even in our largely peaceful times it retains its rousing, martial air that gives it a power that hasn’t diminished. A great stirring, inspiring anthem to take the field to!
When you think of God Save the Queen, it’s just one melody all the way through. This, though, is structured like a song – it’s got a verse, a pre-chorus and then it goes into what I would call a chorus and then back to a verse. It’s quite a jolly, memorable melody, punctuated with a lot of cymbals, which lock the melody down. The lyrics are almost a battle cry, full of dramatic lyrics – crashing waves, volcanoes, marching to the death. Personally I think our anthem is really dreary, but this has a better tempo, a more interesting structure. I think it’s a good singalong, and can really picture them bellowing that out, very proud, before kick-off. I’m not much of a football person, but I’m a glory girl, so I’ll tune in for the final, perhaps a semi-final. I doubt I’ll see much of Honduras this summer.
And speaking of clothing, Matt Dony quite rightly notes: "The important thing to note before this game; How good is France's jersey?"
One thing though - as with many of the jerseys at this World Cup, the French shirt is made of some sort of material that soaks up sweat to the extent that they're all see-through within about 15 minutes. Which is obviously fine for these professional athletes with their hot bods, but perhaps not for those of us who, perhaps, aren't quite so ripped. Also, this will therefore always be remembered as the World Cup of the nipple.
Good news. The French backroom staff seems to have gone down the Germany 2006 route and coordinated their outfits, sporting dark blue suits and open-necked white shirts. They look pretty good, but remains to be seen whether they stick with this approach on the touchline. Hopefully.
Charles Antaki writes in: "Suárez, the Honduran manager, went further in his defence of his players - he’s quoted in the Honduran press as having it that “in no way can you call us violent, what we have is attitude”. Possibly the kind of attitude that gets the odd card, but we, and French shins, shall find out."
Apparently this is the first time since 1934 that there have been no draws in the first nine games. The classification of that statistic might be slightly tricky, as that year it was a straight knockout tournament, with all first round and all second round games held at the same time. So all the first round games ended in victories, but one of the second (Italy 1-1 Spain) rounders ended level, after extra-time, so as all the others were sorted in normal time, that was the last game to finish, thus I guess there technically wasn't a draw until the 12th game.
Interesting choice at the back by Didier Deschamps. While hugely talented, Raphael Varane only made 12 starts for Real Madrid last season, while Mamadou Sakho was, shall we say, frequently quite iffy in a quite frequently iffy Liverpool defence. And it's not as if he didn't have other options, with both Laurent Koscielny and Eliaquim Mangala left scratching their botties on the bench. If one can really scratch one's botty while sitting on it.
So no Olly Giroud for France, despite him bagging in their final friendly against Jamaica the other day, but this side looks much more balanced than that one, which had Karim Benzema sort of floating around the Arsenal man, rather than playing his usual centre-forward role.
France need four more goals to become the fifth team in World Cup history (after Brazil, Germany, Italy and Argentina) to reach the milestone of 100 goals.
Given how much this World Cup is confounding expectations by being so relentlessly entertaining, at what point do we expect it to go right round the other way and confound expectations by two teams playing out an England v Algeria, Switzerland v Ukraine-esque 0-0 draw that will make us want to drive ice picks through our eyes?
No team news through just yet, but there was a bit of a scare for Honduras the other day, with chum of the headline writers Carlos Costly suffering some minor knack in training. Word is he'll probably be OK, mind.
France, France, Francey France. A team who historically (well, in the last decade or so), have been stuffed full of talent, but also with the vaguely inevitable sense that they were going to do something pretty stupid, pretty soon. This was of course most obviously and spectacularly evident in 2010, when the team combusted in the most entertaining manner, featuring fights and arguments and all sorts of other shenanigans. Luckily for them, but perhaps not for the rest of us who enjoy a good intra-squad stramash, things appear a little calmer this time, even to the point where the absence of Franck Ribery looks like it will be greeted with a fairly nonchalant shrug, rather than any sort of hand-wring.
Of course, there is some debate about whether Ribery not being around will actually matter that much, since that back problem probably would have prevented him playing to his capibilities anyway, a back problem that had kicked his form in the swingers over the second half of the season. And since they have the likes of Antoine Griezemann and mini little micro Mathieu Valbuena to provide some spark, plus perhaps the best young midfielder in the world in Paul Pogba, it's perhaps not the end of the world.
Having said all that, there is a suspicion that Deschamps might have taken leave of his senses and has joined the paranoid ranks of David Icke, Jim Corr off of the Corrs and the collection of lunatics on YouTube who make '9/11: THE TRUTH' videos, when he suggested that France's training sessions this week have been spied upon by drones. That's right - drones.
Deschamps believes his garcons might be in for a rough old evening as they face Honduras - quite literally, with the French manager claiming they were a bunch of rough-housers. Which, on the evidence of England's friendly against them the other week, is not the most outrageous conclusion in the world. Not that Luis Fernando Suarez, his opposite number, agrees of course:
We had 16 matches in the qualifying stage and I believe that we didn’t have any of our players sent off with a red card so I think that shows we play football, follow the rules and play as we should.
Burn. Indeed, Suarez called Honduras the 'Cinderella' of Group E,although hopefully they have rethought the footwear, because glass slippers wouldn't be appropriate on a number of levels. Firstly, they would probably get excessively clammy in the Brazilian heat, thus making them quite slippery. Also, what if they break? Or shatter? You could have someone's eye out with a shard from a glass slipper. Health and safety nightmare.
Anyway, kick-off's at 8pm BST. Since basically every other game in this tournament has been a belter of some description, we can only assume this one will be as well. Stay tuned to find out.
Now there is a renewed sense of pride and purpose. As France set off for Brazil, Laurent Koscielny described the ambience as a “family”. That was not a word that was in any way applicable at France’s last World Cup. What passed for French kinship in 2010 erupted into a bitter and explosive divorce.
