France coach Roger Lemerre said on Saturday he did not expect injured playmaker Zinedine Zidane to be fit in time for Thursday's World Cup game against Uruguay.

Zidane missed Friday's shock 1-0 defeat by Senegal with a tear in his thigh muscle.

"It would surprise me if he was fit to play against Uruguay," said Lemerre.

"Zidane is working hard to recover. But he has not resumed training yet. There are just four days before the Uruguay game. It will be too soon to have him back," Lemerre told a press conference.

"He has suffered a very annoying injury as we do not know how long it will take to heal."



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evry body here in france is very disappointed about what's happened to zidane, theyr are almost sure that they will loose the next match, the frensh national team losted 40 matches of 44 they played, and in all the fourth matches,Zidane wasn't playing..., the statistics have spoken, that's why i don't think they will survive,

I am afraid of that too i dont want them to lost...and i hope that Zidane recovers and i hope that they win they have to win the next two in order to qualify

the frensh national team losted 40 matches of 44 they played
:confused: :confused: i very much doubt that reena! check ur sources.

if France can't win without Zidane it doesn't deserve to win the world cup.The Frensh team is full of quality players and i am sure they will win and qualifiy to the second round..but it wont be easy.

i hope too that he will recover,but i m not sure that he will be able to play the next math,and if they lost it, they are dead.
PS: thank you 4-ever-young , i can't stay too long far from the sabla,i try to come back as often as my studies allow it, and it's great to see that you are doing a great job as a moderator here,keep going :)

yeah superstar i m sure about it,and this since 1996, it includes all the official games , qualifications for the world cup 98, the european cup...
you know in every team there is good pleayers,they are all good enough, but what's make the difference is that there is only 1 or 2 great players who lead the team.

If Zaidan doesn’t play then the team would lose again like what happened to them with Uruguay. He is one of the best players!

He is their best player and they all know that...but as superstar said they would be able to win as there are good players to win us to the second round but they have to realy try hard...

ps reena thanks very much appreiciate what u said :)