World Cup Roundup Day 7: Ou est Zidane?

For those of you who don't read or speak French, the title says where is Zidane. The French who had the perfect opportunity to get a victory and all but assure their qualification into the round of 16. Instead they looked like a bunch of good players who were unable to put any offense together. The sum of the players was better than the whole eleven. Raymond Domenech, the coach of France, is leaving the direction of the national team with an undesirable result. It is pretty clear that the France '98 World Cup winning and '06 runner-up generation is retiring and a new group of players is taking their position. The starting eleven of Les Bleus is going to look different in the next few years as young players take over. The key is for them to find an organizer and director of the offense who is similar to Zinedine Zidane. Without him they clearly looked like they had plenty of offensive power, but no one could set the scoring plays in motion. Hugo Lloris is not responsible for either of the goals given up today. He did his best one on one in the first goal, and he dove in the right direction on the penalty shot. The most likely replacements for Domenech as coach are Didier Deschamps or Laurent Blanc both of whom were on the '98 World Cup winning team. Argentina put up a four spot on South Korea which shows that there is still a significant gap between the quality of confederations. Nigeria suffered elimination when Kaita went off for a red card and lost the game 2-1.
Serbia-Germany is an elimination game for the team from the Balkans. A loss to Germany will send Serbia to their second three and out. The match that matters the most to my readers is the US-Slovenia match. This is a must win for America. A victory is critical to put the US into a qualifying position for the knockout stages. This will be difficult with the stinginess of the Slovenian defense. They beat Russia in a knockout playoff. Algeria-England should be a victory for the English. Anything less and Parliament will start an official inquiry. They are already considering being the first country to not go Green.