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that France cannot really cope without their playmaker.

Since the start of the year, the French have never won when their talisman has been sidelined. They were held to a draw by Russia and lost to Belgium at home in warm-up friendlies before slumping to the highly organised Senegalese.

They now have just a hard-fought victory over World Cup cohosts South Korea to show for their last four games, a record hardly worthy of world champions. Zidane started that match but was substituted after 38 minutes with his thigh injury.

Thuram suffered a minor shin bone injury when he slammed into goalkeeper Fabien Barthez in training Monday.

Always very discrete when asked about strategy, Lemerre has for once given some tips about his probable starting line-up.

The cunning French strategist has also hinted that the old 4-3-3 formation favoured by former coach Aime Jacquet in the victorious 1998 World Cup campaign could be an

option.

"Having three defensive midfielders is something I'm considering too. Claude Makelele is with us," said Lemerre.

He stressed that France had developed a winning mentality and were not familiar with defeat.

"Over the last four years we have been used to this culture of victory," Lemerre said. "It's something new for us."

France are heading into unknown territory as they know very little about Uruguay, a side they have not played since 1985.

"We don't know them well. But we know that we have always found it hard to cope with South American football, " said Argentina-born Trezeguet. "We lost to Chile last year and we had had to struggle to beat Paraguay in 1998."

Uruguay's influential midfielder

Fabian O'Neill has still not recovered from an Achilles tendon injury. He has not trained for over two weeks and sat out the Denmark match.

They responded to O'Neill's absence by playing two strikers, with Alvaro Recoba playing as an attacking midfielder behind them, and are likely to opt for the same tactics in Pusan.

Uruguay coach Victor Pua was not too dispirited after the Danish defeat.

"Our remains high, we are still in the competition and we are looking ahead to the next two matches."

But he knows they must be at their best to avoid a French backlash and that means avoiding the defensive errors that allowed Denmark striker Jon Dahl Tomasson to score twice.