France coach Raymond Domenech said his side are not favorites to win the semi-finals clash with Portugal in the World Cup, insisting that it'll be a tight and equal contest. Portugal manager Luiz Felipe Scolari, who led Brazil to winning the World Cup 2002, said earlier that France have better chances to advance to the final. "Scolari says we are favorites, but as a coach he's the current World champion, so his team would be more favored to beat us," Domenech told French paper L'Equipe on Tuesday. "French and Portuguese players play in almost the same clubs and know each others' strength and weakness points." Wednesday's game will be the third semi final between the two sides and despite beating the Portuguese in the EURO 1984 and 2000 semi finals, Domenech says that history won't have any effect on the game. "We don't care about such statistics, history will be erased once the game starts, we now have our history in our hands and we will start it on Wednesday." Domenech is likely to name the same line-up that played against Brazil and Spain and stick to his compact 4-2-3-1 formation with Zinedine Zidane playing as a playmaker and Thierry Henry deployed as a lone striker. Although starters Zidane, Patrick Vieira, Lilian Thuram, Frank Ribery and Claude Makelele are threatened to miss the next match should any of them is cautioned, Domenech said he has no special concerns over the yellow-carded players. "The players are in a good form at the moment and its better to work with continuity," he said. "But I won't be thinking about the final before reaching it, all we have now is the semi final game to focus on."
