Henry celebrates 100th cap in warmup win

Source: Agencies  |   2008-6-4  |     ONLINE EDITION

THIERRY Henry celebrated his 100th cap for France in a 1-0 Euro 2008 warmup win over Colombia at the Stade de France yesterday.

Winger Franck Ribery opened the scoring from a penalty after striker Henry, who became the sixth French player to reach the century milestone, was fouled in the box on 24 minutes.

"Not many strikers from the big nations have reached 100 caps so this means a lot to me but the main thing tonight is that we won," Henry told reporters. "We prepared ourselves in order to win Euro 2008, that's the goal."

The game ended South American-flavoured preparations for the 2006 World Cup runners-up, who defeated Ecuador 2-0 last week before being held to a 0-0 draw by Paraguay at the weekend.

"The important thing is that we did not concede a goal in our three warmup games," Ribery told reporters. "That's positive."

France will travel on Wednesday to their Swiss base for the June 7-29 finals in Austria and Switzerland. They are in Group C with world champions Italy, Netherlands and Romania, their first opponents on June 9 in Zurich.

"We want to win the title," Ribery added. "We have a strong group with a good atmosphere. We're ready for that first match against Romania, which we must win."

Coach Raymond Domenech, whose midfielder and captain Patrick Vieira is nursing a thigh injury that will rule him out of the game against Romania, fielded what is likely to be is starting 11 at Euro 2008, a 4-4-2 formation with Henry and Benzema paired up front.


DANGEROUS BENZEMA

France started in confident fashion, combining well.

The first real chance, however, was for the visitors, winger Juan Carlos Escobar hitting the post from the edge of the box on nine minutes.

The home side kept threatening after moving in front, Benzema testing Colombia goalkeeper Agustin Julio with a couple of dangerous shots.