France, who have appeared in two of the last three finals and won one, face Uruguay amid a salvo of criticism, with nothing but victory enough to satisfy the sceptics.

Raymond Domenech’s team have been in underwhelming form, losing 1-0 to China in a warm-up last week, following a 2-1 win over Costa Rica and a 1-1 draw with Tunisia.

Since arriving in South Africa, they have adopted a siege-like mentality at a luxury resort to focus on the job in hand, training mostly behind closed doors.

This has not gone down well with an irate French media, while Sports Minister Rama Yade caused a stir when she said the team should have shown some “decency” during hard economic times by not using such swanky accommodation.

The World Cup offers another chance for Uruguay to relive their glory days. They collected the 1930 World Cup and repeated the feat in 1950, but have rarely made an impact at the global showpiece since.

This time round expectations at home are not high and coach Oscar Tabarez is keen to ignore the past.

Instead, he wants to focus on getting the best out of a talented, maturing squad who trounced Switzerland and Israel 3-1 and 4-1 respectively in recent friendlies.

Tabarez has already named his team to face the French with defender Mauricio Victorino and midfielder Egidio Arevalo Rios surprise choices.

Victorino, who plays in Chile with Universidad de Chile, replaces Andres Scotti of Colo Colo, also in the Chilean top flight, and Arevalo Rios from Penarol takes over from Walter Gargano of Napoli in a 3-4-1-2 formation.