Email
Print
Digg This
By Patrick Vignal
TOULOUSE, France, May 31 (Reuters) - World Cup runners-up France were held to a 0-0 draw by Paraguay in their penultimate Euro 2008 warmup game on Saturday.
France, who had started their final preparations with a 2-0 win over Ecuador last Tuesday, failed to breach their visitors' tight defence and survived a few scares.
For their first outing since coach Raymond Domenech named his official 23-man list on Wednesday, France were missing midfielder and captain Patrick Vieira, who was nursing a sore left thigh.
While Domenech had rested several first-choice players against Ecuador, nearly all of them were on the Toulouse pitch, which they left to jeers from the crowd after a dull display.
France, meeting Paraguay for the first time since beating them in the first knockout round of their 1998 World Cup-winning campaign, needed a headed clearance by Lassana Diarra off the line from a corner on 72 minutes to escape defeat.
The best chance for the home side came six minutes from time when substitute forward Sidney Govou hit the post with and angled effort from inside the box.
France will play Colombia next Tuesday at the Stade de France in their final match before the June 7-29 tournament in Austria and Switzerland, where they will face Romania, the Netherlands and Italy in Group C.
