Thuram fit but Zidane may miss out

Zinedine Zidane looks to have lost his battle to play for France in today's match with Uruguay in Busan.

The Real Madrid midfielder had a fitness test at the team hotel this morning and manager Roger Lemerre, who does not want to risk losing Zidane for the rest of the tournament by bringing him back too quickly, was waiting to check on any reaction to the thigh injury that kept him out of the 1-0 defeat against Senegal in the World Cup's opening game.

Better news is that defender Lilian Thuram is fit after missing training this week with a thigh problem. Because of Zidane's injury, Lemerre was delaying selection of his midfield to the last minute.

Chelsea's Emmanuel Petit and Arsenal's Patrick Vieira were outnumbered against the Senegalese and one option for Lemerre is to bring in Zidane's Real Madrid team-mate Claude Makelele.

That would mean dropping Arsenal's Sylvain Wiltord, who made his World Cup debut against Senegal, as Lemerre also contemplates starting with Christophe Dugarry instead of Youri Djorkaeff.

Lemerre is aware of the pressure on the world champions to deliver and admitted: "The only thing I'm certain of is that everybody will be after my blood if we lose."

Captain Marcel Desailly said: "We haven't given any thought to losing in the last five days. We are in a positive frame of mind going into the game and we are thinking about winning, not about defeat."

Uruguayan forward Dario Silva, who picked up a calf injury in the 2-1 defeat by Denmark, is fit to play but Fabian O'Neill, who has failed to recover from the Achilles tendon injury which kept him out of the Denmark game, missed today's match.