France play Senegal at 12.30pm (BST - British Summer time) tomorrow in the first game of the World Cup 2002 after the opening ceremony. France's best player, Zinedine Zidane (midfield) will miss the first two games through injury but they still have quality players like Thierry Henry (attacker), David Trezeguet (attacker), Patrick Vierra (midfield) and Emmanuel Petit (midfield).

Senegal are not well known outside Africa but were the surprise finalists of the African Cup and could also qualify from Group A (the other teams being Uruguay and Denmark). Their star striker is El Hadji Diouf  and their midfielder Salif Diao has just signed for Liverpool.

The England captain, David Beckham gave a press conference today and said that he was confident of lasting the full 90 minutes in the game against Sweden on June 2. He said that he has taken some tackles in training and "its been alright". He said that he had received lots of messages while recovering from his injury including a good luck message from the Queen. When asked if he had a Golden Jubilee message, Beckham said "Just enjoy it. It's going to be a great weekend back in England with a few parties [celebrating the Queen's Golden Jubilee and watching England's first World Cup game]. Hopefully we'll have a party here too on Sunday".

The only England injury worry now is with Kieron Dyer - he has been training with the squad for a couple of days now but will find out on Friday 31 May 2002 whether he is fit enough to remain in the England squad after his injury - otherwise he will be replaced by standby Under 21 striker/winger Alan Smith.