France v Austria - World Cup Qualifier

Not being able to help ourselves with our desire to finally see some world class football. We took ourselves along with some other Aussies out to Stade de France last week, to see the World Cup Qualifiedr between France and Austria.

France have been struggling a little with their qualification for South Africa 2010, coming 2nd in their group, and indeed lost to Austria 1 - 0 in their last meet back in Austria earlier in their year. Sadly for France the outcome of their group was such that regardless of the result of this game they were destined to finish 2nd in their group which meant they still have not qualified for the World Cup, but they are not out of it at the same time.

Despite this fact, there was a sellout crowd at the Stade de France of 80,000 (home to the 1998 World Cup Final). We were very pleased when we arrived at our seats to discover that there were 40,000 French flag distributed amongst the seats for us to wave throughout the game. So we grabbed our flags and settled into our seats on the lower level in the corner of the ground.

The stadium slowly filled and by the time the two teams came out onto the field it had reached a roar. After a stirring rendition of 'Le Marseillaise' (during which I find it very difficult not to start singing the Brisbane Lions club song) the game got underway.

Austria almost opened the scoring after 10 mins, only to be denied by an acrobatic save from the French keeper. This early strike stirred the French team and from this point onwards they finally started finding their feet and launched numerous attacking raids only to be denied by the Austrian defense. The Frenchmen's hard work was rewarded with a goal by Benzema after 18 minutes. 10 minutes later, French hero Henry was barely touched as he was brought down in the box, but the referee had no hesitations in pointing directly at the spot. Henry picked himself up, and stepped up to the mark to casually slot away France's 2nd goal after 27 mins. It could easily have been 3 or 4 before half time, if not for some wayward shooting and poor last touches by the French players. However they went into the main break, leading 2 goals to nil.

France opened up the 2nd half looking a little slack, and Austria were able to pounce on this slackness picking up a lucky goal 2 mins into the 2nd half. This goal once against woke up the French team and they continued to dominate for the next 25 mins. During this time they were rewarded for their persistance with a 3rd goal by Gignac in the 67th minute. This would finalise the scoring for the evening and when the referees whistle sounded for full time, everyone (except the small group of Austrian fans) would leave happy with the result at 3-1.

The National Anthem

Henry's Goal