A magical backheel from Thierry Henry lifted France to a come-from-behind 3-2 win over Costa Rica in an international friendly here on Wednesday.

The fixture raised over half a million euros for the families of victims of the August 16 air crash in Venezuala which left 160 dead, all except ten of the victims coming from this Caribbean island.

A minute's silence was observed before kick-off, but while that was immaculately observed the capacity 16,000-crowd erupted just 13 minutes later when Alvario Saborio put the Costa Ricans into the lead.

Narrowly beating the offside trap Saborio powered into the box and had all the time in the world to slot the ball right-angled past Fabien Barthez, chosen over Lyon keeper Gregory Coupet who will be in the France goal against Germany on Saturday.

Nicolas Anelka was making his first appearance for France in over three years after the former Manchester City attacker either refused to play or was shut out by former coach Jacques Santini or his successor Raymond Domenech.

And he went close after the half hour mark with a shot hitting the post but it was the Costa Ricans who went into the break with an unscripted 2-0 lead, Danny Fonseca doubling their advantage in the 40th minute.

Fonseca's header into an empty goal came after Barthez had mistimed his attempt to intercept Walter Centeno's cross from the right, a mistake that will not have helped the Marseille star's cause in his stand-off with Coupet to be number one keeper in Germany next year.

Anelka capped his comeback in the best possible way with a goal three minutes after the interval, the Fenerbahce striker being fed by Henry and shooting into an empty net.

Djibril Cisse then produced the equaliser after coming on as a replacement for Anelka, the Liverpool

striker scoring off a pass from Vikash Dhorasoo in the 79th minute.

That was Cisse's ninth goal for Les Bleus, that haul someway off the 31-goals scored by Henry, the Arsenal ace joining David Trezeguet as France's second top scorer when getting France's winner with three minutes left on the clock.

Arsenal's all time record goalgetter back heeled Jerome Rothen's corner past Jose Francisco Porras in the Costa Rica goal to send the crowd away with the result they had come for.

"What a pleasure that was! We couldn't come here for the families of the victims and lose," said Henry.

Domenech added: "France played like the team I know in the second half. It's better to be down 2-0 and win 3-2 than the other way around!"

Before kick-off Patrick Vieira handed over a cheque for 550,000 euros to France's Overseas Minister Francois Baroin, with half the money coming from gate receipts and half from players' and officials contributions.