France coach Raymond Domenech said his team deserved the World Cup place despite the controversial qualification for the World Cup as they prepare for their opener against Uruguay.

France qualified for the 2010 World Cup finals thanks to a Thierry Henry handball to set up William Gallas in their play-off second leg against the Republic of Ireland, but the coach rejected suggestions his team do not deserve to be in South Africa.

"We finished second in our group, we won the play-off - incidentally it was the same for Uruguay who won their play-off," he said. "Other teams won and qualified and there are 32 who qualified who deserved to qualify. That's football.

"The people who are here deserve to be here and obviously somebody will win at the end and they will have deserved to have won and not others."

Domenech said the spirit within the camp is anything but "calm" - although he has played down reports of disunity.

"I may seem calm," he said. "However, underneath all that there is something of a storm going on. We need to manage that, the 23 of us are ready and determined."