At the dawn of tomorrow, there will be a cruel showdown between the ageing France and the emerging Spain. But that would be just a cakewalk for Spain, then we'll see a much tougher collision between Spain and Brazil.

Spain, long regarded as under-achievers on the big stage, have plenty of young talent and have suggested they might make an impact on this World Cup while France, the 1998 World Cup winner are relying on an ageing team and have struggled to advance to the second round.

Spain have played the France 27 times with 11 wins, 10 defeats and 6 draws.

The two have never met each other on the World Cup stage but France won 2-1 the last time they played Spain in the quarter-finals of Euro 2000.

Spain breezed through thrashing the Ukraine 4-0, dumping Tunisia 3-1 and blowing out Saudi Arabia without their key players. By contrast, France had quite a bit more trouble scoring. After the scoreless game against the Switzerland, they finally scored during a 1-1 draw against Korea. Had France not had such a 2-0 win over Toto, they would have gone home in the group stage.

I think the scenario would be like this: the French come out looking strong but they lose some opportunities. They got mentally stretched and try to play everything through the aging Zidane but have no avail. Raul would be great, Villa would be great. Spain will eventually take over with a 2-1 win.

By Zhenyu Li, sports writer for PD Online

The article represents the writer's views only