Ribery ruins Beckham's big day

A first-half penalty from Bayern Munich's Franck Ribery was enough to condemn Fabio Capello to his first defeat as England coach in Paris. In a game overshadowed by David Beckham earning his 100th international cap, England were noticeably outplayed by a French side who had four Premier League players in their line-up.

The defining moment came in the 31st minute when Chelsea's Nicolas Anelka raced onto a through-ball and was brought down by England goalkeeper David James.
For James it must have been a moment of deja vu as he recalled the last game between the two sides: in Euro 2004 James felled Thierry Henry in the 90th minute for Zinedine Zidane to step up to score the penalty as England let a 1-0 lead slip away.
The result was the same tonight as Ribery sent James the wrong way and placed the ball into the bottom left hand corner of England's net for his third international goal.
Capello made four changes at half-time as he hoped to bring England more into the match as Steven Gerrard, Joe Cole, Wayne Rooney and John Terry were all withdrawn. Terry's subsitution was attributed to a slight hamstring strain he had picked up.
The new strike-force of Michael Owen and Peter Crouch had no more luck than Rooney and Gerrard and Beckham was evenutally replaced just after the hour by Blackburn Rovers midfielder David Bentley.
France continued to dominate and, after Anelka had turned skipper Rio Ferdinand and fired narrowly over, Florent Malouda came agonisingly close to doubling France's lead, his left-foot drive grazing the foot of James's left-hand post with the goalkeeper beaten.
But with England failing to create a single clear chance in the second half, their hosts hardly needed the additional cushion Ribery or substitute Djibril Cisse, who fired into the side netting in the final minute, could have provided.