Quite-poor France hit for 3, Mexes had a nightmare, Consolation goal from Govou

France turned in a woeful performance to open their World Cup qualifying campaign, one they will want to forget. Austria opened the scoring with two very similar free kicks, with France looking like they didn't know what they were doing.

It was a collective failure to defend set pieces, but Mexes, on the first goal was horribly exposed. It looked like it could have been a Mexes own-goal. He was behind the striker, and made some kind of attempt to kick in the direction of the ball, the only result was to leave Mandanda stranded. Things got worse from Mexes when he tackled a player in the box from a corner to give a way a penalty and gift the third goal. It is really rare for a referee to give a penalty for contact away from the ball on a set play, but the contact from Mexes was blatant (3).

Gallas, the other central defender, lost out for the second of the twin free kick goals, and looked shaky a few other times. Organizing defense for set plays might not be his forte (5).

Sagna looked a step slow, couldn't offer much going forward, and was subbed off for Lassana Diarra to move to right back (6).

L. Diarra was having a pretty poor game in central midfield with a series of unsuccessful long balls, but looked better at right back (6).

Mandanda was hit for 3 goals, but it's hard to say if he could have done more on the two free kicks. If he had claimed them, it would have been great. I'll be curious to read what others thought about his role in the twin freekick goals. He guessed the wrong way for the penalty (6).

Evra was probably France's best player. He got the end line a few times, and setup France's goal doing so (7).

Nasri was really quiet (5).

Toulalan was France's other best player. Nothing spectacular, but lots of tackles and decent passing. He did have one really nice long-range shot on target, heading for the top corner, but the keeper saved it, pushing it onto the bar (7).

Govou started slow, but fed Benzema a would-be assist that Benzema hit straight at the keeper, and Govou scored a really nice goal set up by Evra. In a normal game, without the comedy defending, it would have been 1-0. It would have still been a woeful performance because France created very little (7).

Benzema had that chance to score when he hit it straight at the keeper, and other than that he didn't do much to impress (5).

Henry had a couple shots on target but they hit so tamely, that a keeper with a bad back could have saved them. Both of the strikers had quiet games (5).

Anelka and Gourcuff came on for the Arsenal players (Sagna and Nasri), and they improved the team a little bit.

Overall, it was a really poor game from France, one to hopefully forget.

Group 7	Matches Played	Points
Serbia	4	9
Lithuania	4	9
Austria	4	4
France	3	4
Romania	3	4
Faroe Islands	4	1

In the qualifying campaign, each team plays the others in the group home and away. The winner of each group will progress to the 2010 World Cup. The 8 best runners-up from the 9 groups will then be drawn into four play-off matches with the winners of each two-legged tie joining the pool winners in South Africa.