2006 FIFA World Cup Coverage

Win gets France to Round 2

By TIMES WIRES
Published June 24, 2006

COLOGNE, Germany - Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry scored to help France beat Togo 2-0 and avoid being eliminated in the first round of its second straight World Cup.

"I'm very happy, but the main thing is France qualified," said defender Lilian Thuram, who made his record 117th appearance for the national team. "We saw what France is capable of, and I can assure you we are more than motivated. If we weren't, we wouldn't have gotten through."

France, the 1998 champs who went scoreless in 2002, tied its first two matches and would have been eliminated with another. It wasted no time in pressuring Togo.

David Trezeguet forced keeper Kossi Agassa to palm his close-range header over the bar. Soon after, he tapped the ball into an empty net only for the goal to be disallowed for offside.

The breakthrough came in the 55th minute, when Franck Ribery went on a run and, instead of shooting, fed inside to Vieira, spun and fired a powerful right-footer past Agassa.

There was still danger at the other end, when defender Willy Sagnol had to block a goalbound shot from Emmanuel Adebayor.

But France's problems disappeared in the 61st when Vieira headed on a lobbed pass from Sagnol and Henry held off a defender to score with a low right-footer.

Switzerland 2, S. Korea 0

Philippe Senderos and Alexander Frei scored in Hanover to give Switzerland first in Group G. It remained the only team to have not allowed a goal.

"We're proud we didn't give up a goal," keeper Pascal Zuberbuehler. "It's fun playing with this team. We fought defensively all together."

Senderos made it 1-0 with a bloody goal in the 23rd. Hakan Yakin, chosen only after striker Johan Vonlanthen was injured, curled a free kick from 35 yards. Senderos ran onto it and butted heads with Choi Jin-cheul but got enough of the ball to beat Lee Woon-jae. Both sustained cuts.

Switzerland, which needed only a tie to advance, kept 10 men back for most of the second half, occasionally creating chances on counters. Frei sealed it in the 77th with one

Xavier Margairaz, who replaced Yakin in the 71st, started the first of two quick passes at the top of the area with Ricardo Cabanas, who sent Frei in alone on Lee.

Ukraine 1, Tunisia 0

Andriy Shevchenko's penalty kick in the 70th in Berlin helped Ukraine become the first former-Soviet republic to reach the second round.

Tunisia needed to win to reach the second round, but it lost top striker Ziad Jaziri to a second yellow card just before halftime.

Shevchenko scored after appearing to trip on his own feet while running between keeper Ali Boumnijel and defender Karim Hagui.

"Maybe we took it too easy at first and Tunisia really confounded us with a lot of difficult situations," Ukraine coach Oleh Blokhin said. "But when we scored, then we became the superior team."

Spain 1, Saudi Arabia 0

Juanito Gutierrez's goal in the 36th in Kaiserslautern extended Spain's unbeaten streak under coach Luis Aragones to 25.

Yet Aragones said he expected more from his bench players, who played because Spain had all but clinched first in Group H.

"In the first half, we were good. We created many chances," he said. "The Saudis played an excellent match in the second half; much better than we were.

"They deserved to score a goal. In fact, we could have lost."

Spain scored when Jose Antonio Reyes sent a curling free kick from the left flank and Juanito connected with a perfectly timed header that beat Mabrouk Zayed.

After the game, Saudi Arabia striker Sami al-Jaber retired. Against Tunisia, al-Jaber, 33, became the first Asian to score in three World Cups. Overall, he played in 163 international games.

MEXICO: Jared Borgetti, whose 38 international goals are first all-time among Mexicans, was cleared to play today against Argentina after missing two games with a muscle injury in his left thigh.

RATINGS: The United States' 2-1 loss to Ghana on Thursday got the fifth-highest rating for a soccer game on ESPN. The network got a 3.2, which translates into an estimated 2.9-million homes. The most-viewed game in ESPN history was the U.S.-Germany quarterfinal in the 2002 World Cup, which had a 4.4 for about 3.8-million homes.

[Last modified June 24, 2006, 07:24:23]