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The coach of the French national team, Raymond Domenech, has extended his contract with "Les Blues" team. The coach agreed to sign a new contract and will now lead the national team until the 2010 World Cup, which will take place in South Africa. The 54-year-old strategist took over the French national team in the summer of 2004, replacing Jacques Santini after the latter failed to perform well in the 2004 European Championship in Portugal, where France ended the tournament quite early. After a difficult start leading France, R. Domenech still managed to lead his team to the final of this year's World Cup. In the championship held in Germany, the first matches for France were not great, so the coach and the team received a lot of criticism. However, R. Domenech's players shone in the quarterfinals, defeating one of the most serious contenders for the main laurels of the championship, Spain, then repeating the success of 1998 against Brazil in the quarterfinals, and beating the well-performing Portugal national team in the semifinals. Nevertheless, in the final, the team couldn’t maintain the same pace and lost to Italy after a dramatic penalty shootout. Currently, France is a leader in Group B of the qualifiers for the 2008 European Championship - the team won the first match against Georgia and avenged the loss to Italy's team, and will test their strength against Scotland and Faroe Islands on the 7th and 11th of the following month.
