France v Togo

Henry's goal in the 14th minute should have stood if the linesmen actually knew the rules. Frank Ribery plays a ball past the defenders, and an onside David Trezeguet goes past them to play it. Thierry Henry moves with Trezeguet, and is past the defenders on the other side, and Trezeguet passes to Henry... who is behind the defenders but even with the ball. Henry puts the ball past the keeper for what should have been a goal, because anybody behind the ball is onside, regardless of where the defenders are. This is the second huge robbery of France after the goal the Korean keeper grabbed against his body while two feet behind the line. If this happened to the Italians or the English we'd never hear the end of it.

35 minutes in the linesmen still haven't decided to watch the game. They seem to be figuring that all players move at the same speed, so anybody who gets behind the defense must have had a head start. Henry is called offside again, because he's fast and was played onside by a Togolese defender on the other side of the field. I seriously don't know where they found these guys. Somebody get Pierluigi Collina out of that desert in Nevada where he's eating tourists, and back out onto the field. To be fair, in the 50th minute, yet another mysterious offside call went against Togo. I have no idea how they fucked that one up, but this crew will probably get the final now.

In 39th minute, it seemed clear France still couldn't score. Makelele took a long shot that was too hard for Agassa to hang onto, and Trezeguet came in for the rebound, but fired the rebound right at the keeper, who still couldn't grab it, and that rebound nearly dribbled over the line before Agassa jumped and smothered it with his body. They look a lot sharper with Zidane suspended, and the ball moving a lot quicker between Ribery, Henry, and Trezeguet. Henry does seem to be taking some weird final touches on the ball and missing the goal from point blank range.

Finally, in the 55th minute, Ribery takes the ball into the box, moving left and drawing two defenders and the keeper, while Patrick Vieira moves behind him. Ribery makes a short pass to Vieira who makes the quick turn and the shot into the corner, knowing the keeper can't come all the way back across the goal from where he was watching Ribery. In the 61st minute, Vieira flicks a header to Henry at the penalty spot, who slides right, turns and fires across the goal to the left post, and France is up 2-0.

Barthez tried to keep things interesting by diving to save a shot that was going wide, and handling it as it crossed the line to give Togo a corner kick (seriously, all he had to do was watch), but it was all over after that point. With a Swiss win over Korea, France advances to play Spain in the next round, while Switzerland meets the Ukraine (and my god will that game suck based on their other games).

Quick note to ESPN, raving about how the name "Michel Platini" rolls off the tongue is kind of stupid when you're pronouncing it wrong. Here's my Platini pronunciation guide: if he were Italian, the stress would go on the second syllable, making it Plah-TEEN-ee, and that's how ESPN keeps gently rolling it off their tongues. Since he's French, it's the inverse, PLAH-tih-NEE. The Jose+11 commercial where he appears runs 800 times a day for god's sake.

France 2-0 Togo
'55 Vieira
'61 Henry

Switzerland 2-0 South Korea
'24 Senderos
'77 Frei