Senegal were making their debut on the World Cup stage but afforded the reigning champions little respect, stifling their opponents with a disciplined 4:5:1 formation; hence dispelling the oldest cliché in the book that Africans cannot defend, while lending credence to another one, that there are no more easy games in international football.

Indeed it was France who looked more uncomfortable in the heat and humidity as their midfield anchorman Patrick Vieira contrived to give the ball away in dangerous positions time and again. The celebrated and much-decorated defensive pairing of Marcel Dessailly and Frank Leboeuf were also left sprawling on their bottoms more than once as Senegal cut through their former colonial masters with incisive pace and daredevil abandon.

It was an evening full of ironies. Vieira, born and bred in Dakar until moving to France at the age of six, was facing the country of his birth. The 23-man Senegal squad comprises of 21 players plying their trade in the French league, with their entire starting eleven attached to French clubs. Even Senegal’s coach is French. In contrast, until Frank Leboeuf left Chelsea last season, France’s entire squad played outside of their home country.

The Europeans were missing reigning World Footballer of the Year Zinedine Zidane with a strained thigh muscle but shrugged off suggestions that they would miss their star player’s guile by dictating the pace of the game early on. Playing in an adventurous 4:2:3:1 formation with Arsenal strikers Sylvain Wiltord (if you can call him one) and Theirry Henry tearing down the flanks either side of Juventus’ David Trezeguet, with the veteran Youri Djorkaeff in a playmaking role further behind, France sought the early goal that would serve to soothe their nerves.

With such a stellar cast boasting of the top scorers in three major European leagues (Henry in England, Trezeguet in Italy and Cisse in France) in their ranks, you could sense that France were beginning to belief in their own hype and had long taken victory to be a foregone conclusion. Such optimism was given further encouragement when Trezeguet twice came close to scoring in a three-minute spell. After seeing a one-on-one opportunity thwarted by some decisive goalkeeping by Senegal’s Tony Sylvia, Trezeguet was denied again in the 22nd minute when Henry released his team-mate in the box with a fluid pass, but the striker could only afford a wry smile when he crashed his powerful shot against the post.

Any smugness was soon wiped off the French’s faces as Senegal scored a farcical goal to take a lead on the half-hour mark that they never relinquished. Breaking down yet another French move in midfield, Senegal launched a silver-quick counter attack down the left. Liverpool target El Hadji Diouf skinned Leboeuf and left him for dead as he sprinted down the flank and whipped in a low out-swerving cross. The comical sequence of events that followed would not look out of place in a Dario Fo play. The ball clipped the heels of Dessailly to wrong-foot Fabien Barthez and Emmanuel Petit beat off Diop’s challenge to get his foot to the loose ball first. However, Petit only contrived to stab the ball against Barthez’s shoulder and the ball fell invitingly to Diop, who was by this point lying on the lush pitch, and the midfielder swung his boot from a sitting position to hook into an empty net. A typical Barthez goal, as some would add.

The overnight hero Papa Bouba Diop--- a name so exotic that it would not be out of place in the Star Wars universe --- then raced ecstatically to the corner flag and fussily laid down his jersey on the pitch before dancing a tribal jig of joy around it, joined in by his team-mates. I would like to see our local players copy that in the S-League...

As the game progressed France threw bodies forward in a desperate bid to overturn the scores but Senegal defended resolutely, with Aliou Cisse and Ferdinand Coly hardly putting a foot wrong at the back while Monaco reserve goalkeeper Tony Sylvia--- who more than matched Barthez in the eccentricity department by rushing off his line at every conceivable opportunity with his shorts seemingly having caught fire--- played the game of his life to keep a clean sheet.

To their credit France came out of their ivory towers to play some fine attacking football in the second half with Dessailly leading his team by example, but luck proved not to be on the champions’ side. Henry almost restored parity in the 66th minute with a sublime piece of skill when he flicked the ball up in the Senegal box and fired an exquisite chip over the stranded Sylvia, but the ball crashed off the bar when it had seemed destined for the net.

Thereafter Christophe Duggary came on for a faded Djorkaeff to little effect for France while Djibril Cisse entered the fray too late to save France’s blushes. So after El Hadji Diouf narrowly failed in his personal quest to break the record for the most number of off-sides in a World Cup game, the French kings were deposed, and a brave new era beckons.

France (4-2-3-1): Barthez; Thuram, Leboeuf, Desailly, Lizarazu; Vieira, Petit; Wiltord (Cissé, 81), Djorkaeff (Dugarry, 60), Henry; Trezeguet.

Senegal (4-5-1): Sylva; Coly, Diatta, PM Diop, Daf; M Ndiaye, Diao, A Cissé, PB Dioup, Fadiga; Diouf.