France - Yugoslavia 3-0

Claude Makelele (France) is tackled by Igor Duljaj

Paris, FRANCE, November 20 (uefa.com) - Olympique Lyonnais's Eric Carrière and AJ Auxerre's Olivier Kapo inspired UEFA European Championship title-holders France to a friendly victory over Yugoslavia at the Stade de France tonight.

The success comes after three consecutive UEFA EURO 2004™ qualifying victories over Cyprus, Slovenia and Malta had put Jacques Santini's side six points clear of Israel at the top of Group 1.

Carrière, promoted to the starting lineup after Zinedine Zidane withdrew with a back injury, lived up to all expectations, scoring in both halves before Kapo scored his first international goal for the third. The Lyon player put the home team ahead in the eleventh minute, latching on to a cross from Lilian Thuram to claim his fourth goal in ten international matches.

Yugoslavian striker Darko Kovacevic found himself ideally placed in front of the opposition goal in the 23rd minute but Manchester United FC defender Mickael Silvestre cleared the danger. Still the visitors pressed forward and goalkeeper Fabien Barthez was called into action on the half-hour mark when he threw himself on to Mateja Kezman's shot, then denied the PSV Eindhoven striker twice more before the break.

France started the second half at a frenetic pace as Carrière scored his second goal of the evening in the 50th minute after a pass from Emmanuel Petit. The Yugoslavians then had a goal disallowed in the 61st minute when Savo Milosevic was adjudged to have strayed offside.

Then, in the 70th minute, France put the game beyond doubt as Henry's initial shot was cleared by Jevric only as far as Kapo who made no mistake. Les Bleus' next match will be a friendly against the Czech Republic on 12 February before they resume their EURO 2004™ qualifying campaign in March against Malta on March 29. Yugoslavia take on Group 9 leaders Wales at the beginning of April.

EURO 2004 QUALIFICATIONS, GROUP 9, Baku, Azerbaijan, November 20

AZERBAIJAN- WALES 0-2 (0-1)

Scorers: Speed ('9) and Hartson ('69).

Group 9 - Current Standings

 
                          G   W   D   L    F-A   Pts
         1. Wales         3   3   0   0    6-1    9 
         2. Yugoslavia    2   1   1   0    3-1    4 
         3. Italy         3   1   1   1    4-3    4 
         4. Finland       3   1   0   2    3-4    3 
         5. Azerbaijan    3   0   0   3    0-7    0