World Cup: France and Italy - Settled and similar

The World Cup final Sunday night brings together two teams with settled lineups. Both have managed to avoid suspensions. Both are largely free of injury - Alessandro Nesta, the Italian center back, is likely to be the only significant absentee.

Both teams play the same formation: four defenders, a band of four across midfield and one man supporting the lone striker. The principal difference is that Italy has shown far more willingness to attack in numbers than France.

FRANCE

Fabien Barthez

The goalkeeper is one of the survivors of the great team that won the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000. But he has been far from great in Germany. He used to compensate for his lack of size with brash aggression. Here he has seemed nervous, but so far neither he nor France, which has conceded only two goals, one from a penalty, has been punished.

Zinédine Zidane

The French talisman has always been a man for the big game and this, he insists, will be his last. He was superb against Brazil. It was his first good World Cup performance since the 1998 final. He contributed little in the semifinal, where he often found himself facing three Portuguese midfielders. While the French reluctance to commit men to attack means he can expect to be outnumbered again, the Italians, less defensive than Portugal, are unlikely to feel the need to give him that much attention.

Thierry Henry

Center forward is the one position at which France has unquestionably the better player. Yet, in a team that orbits around Zidane, Henry continues to struggle to find his dazzling club form. He is France's top scorer with three goals and he won the penalty that produced the goal against Portugal. In that game, he worked selflessly as a decoy, pulling wide and dropping into midfield to create space for Zidane, Malouda and Ribéry.

ITALY

Gianluigi Buffon

He has done nothing to undermine his reputation as the best goalkeeper in the world. Indeed, playing behind a superb back four, he often does nothing. The only goal he has conceded was an own-goal by Cristian Zaccardo in the 27th minute of the second group game against the United States. If he stays unbeaten for the first 64 minutes Sunday, he will break the Italian Walter Zenga's 1990 World Cup record of 517 minutes without a goal.

Gianluca Zambrotta, Fabio Grosso

Two defensively sound fullbacks - this is Italy, after all. Zambrotta caught the eye with his tricky attacking play until Grosso scored a goal any striker would have cherished, with three minutes left in extra-time in the semifinal.

Fabio Cannavaro, Marco Materazzi

At just 1.75 meters, Cannavaro is tiny for a central defender. Yet so good is his leaping and his timing that he wins the ball in the air against big strikers. Everything Cannavaro does is impeccably timed. He is without a rival as the best central defender at this World Cup. He is the organizer of the Italian defense and a deft ballplayer and passer. Materazzi, standing in for Nesta, looked clumsy when he was sent off against Australia, but gave a much smoother display in the semifinal.