France finally won again in a major international soccer tournament while Japan managed to shutout the competition's underdog Wednesday as the Confederations Cup got started just outside Paris.
The host nation barely got by Colombia 1-0 on a contentious penalty in Lyon, while Japan soundly defeated New Zealand 3-0 in Saint-Denis.
After failing to score a single goal in defense of its 1998 World Cup title at soccer's showcase event last year, France finally found the net on Thierry Henry's powerful penalty blast in the 39th minute.
A couple minutes earlier, Sylvain Wiltord snaked his way through on the right, ran into the penalty area and tried to pass past Velasquez. Wiltord immediately claimed a hand ball, but referee Lucilio Cardoso waved play on until the linesman started waving his flag for an infraction. Replays showed the penalty could easily not have been given.
"We didn't see much. The referee was not well place and it had to be pointed out by his assistant," France coach Jacques Santini said.
Vehement protests from the Colombian players didn't matter to the Portuguese referee.
Shunsuke Nakamura and Hidetoshi Nakata led the way for Japan. Nakamura scored twice and fellow Italian league player Nakata found the net once.
Only 36,038 fans showed up in the 78,000-seat Stade de France just outside Paris, while France played Colombia in front of a capacity crowd of some 42,000 in the late match.
Tournament officials were not expecting a big turnout for Japan-New Zealand, however, as was evidenced by the fact that the opening ceremony preceded the France match instead of the actual opener.
"It's a bit strange, to be honest," New Zealand fan Murray Chesterman said. "Why didn't they have the ceremony here?"
Along with France, the other favorite to win the eight-nation competition is current World Cup champion Brazil.
The South Americans made news Wednesday when they decided which striker would start in the place of the absent Ronaldo, who is finishing his club season with Real Madrid.
Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira settled on Parma's prolific scorer Adriano, who finished fifth with 15 goals in the Italian league this past season.
Parreira was also considering Fabiano, a 22-year-old forward with Sao Paulo. But Fabiano was diagnosed with a thigh injury Wednesday and ruled out.
Brazil faces Cameroon in the Stade de France on Thursday.
On Wednesday, South America's defensive leaders nearly shut out France.
If Colombia's strikeforce had been half as efficient as its defensive line, the South American champion could well have scored a major upset.
Belying his age of 26 and with a series of timely interventions, Inter Milan stopper Ivan Cordoba kept the pressing European champions at bay. Together with Mario Yepes, he frustrated Henry to the level of recklessness around the half hour.
Suddenly, the elegant Arsenal striker turned ugly and went, studs first, into the thighs of Yepes. If that wasn't bad enough, he floored Cordoba moments after the referee had tried to cool tempers.
Henry was lucky to escape with only a yellow card, especially since he scored the decider minutes later.
Still, France joined Japan atop the Group A standings.
group B
Group B features Brazil, Cameroon, Turkey and the US. For Japan, the story was in midfield, where Nakamura and Nakata helped the co-hosts of last year's World Cup set off national celebrations by reaching the second round.
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