BRUSSELS, Belgium -- France ended a three-game losing streak on Wednesday by drawing 0-0 with Belgium in a friendly, while striker Karim Benzema extended his goal drought for the national team to 1,155 minutes. Wholesale Air Max Shoes . Belgium bossed the midfield and created the better chances but lacked the finishing touch despite an inspired Kevin De Bruyne. Eric Abidal was playing his first match for France since recovering from a liver transplant last year while Geoffrey Kondogbia was making his France debut. France will face Georgia and Belarus in World Cup qualifiers next month while Belgium will visit Scotland. "I would have preferred to win, even though we lost our previous matches," France coach Didier Deschamps told TF1 television. "We didnt win this match, but we didnt lose either. The match that we will have to win is the one in Georgia in September." In six matches this year, France has four losses, one draw and just one victory. By contrast, Belgium won its five previous games. Benzema had the first scoring chance of the match in the 11th minute with an effort from a tight angle stopped by goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois. But Belgium looked the better team, spurred by an attack that had a strong Chelsea flavour with Romelu Lukaku up front and Eden Hazard and De Bruyne on the wings. Laurent Koscielny twice saved France with timely tackles. The Arsenal centre back beat Lukaku to the ball in the 16th to clear a teasing cross from De Bruyne before intercepting a through ball from De Bruyne for Hazard in the 24th. Koscielny teamed up with Abidal in the heart of the France defence. The Monaco centre back played the entire match and showed poise despite Belgiums pressure. Belgium is 10th in the FIFA rankings while France has slipped to 23rd. The gap clearly showed on the pitch. Hazard cut inside to fire a low drive straight into Hugo Lloris arms in the 21st while De Bruyne took advantage of a poor clearance from Koscielny in the 37th but missed the target from close range. Franck Ribery led Bayern Munich to the Champions League title last May and proved Frances most potent threat. The France winger outpaced Marouane Fellaini to square the ball back for Benzema in the 43rd but Vincent Kompany rushed back to clear Riberys low cross. On the stroke of halftime, Ribery set up Benzema, whose curling shot sailed over the bar. The Real Madrid striker also failed to catch the frame from five yards in the 59th and was denied by Courtois in the 66th as his international goal drought continued. Kondogbia shone last month as a member of the France team that won the Under-20 World Cup. But on Wednesday he struggled in midfield for his first cap. One of his turnovers led to a dangerous Belgian counterattack in the fifth minute. Kondogbia nearly made amends in the 30th as Courtois punched a corner into the path of the Sevilla midfielder, whose volley deflected off Toby Alderweirelds head. Belgium stepped up the pressure in the second half. But fullback Sebastien Pocognoli in the 49th, Fellaini in the 62nd, and substitute Kevin Mirallas in the 73rd all missed the target. De Bruyne tormented the France defence, slipping the ball to Lukaku in the 59th but the Chelsea forward could not make contact with the ball, four yards from the goal line. Lloris helped France salvage a draw by saving an angled shot from Lukaku in the 53rd and parrying a powerful strike from De Bruyne in the 68th. Samir Nasri came off the bench in the 63rd to replace Dimitri Payet. That was Nasris first appearance for France since serving a three-game ban for insulting a journalist in an expletive-laced tirade following a 2-0 loss to Spain at the 2012 European Championship. France had the last chance of the match. Olivier Giroud, who replaced Benzema, pounced on a loose ball in the 85th but sent his volley over the bar from 15 yards. In World Cup qualifying, Belgium leads Group A, three points ahead of Croatia, whereas France trails Spain by one point in Group I. Cheap Air Max Sale . Notes on Bergeron, Marchand, Gorges, Vanek, Gaborik, Doughty, Hiller and more. BRUINS STORM BACK TO TAKE GAME TWO The Boston Bruins rallied from a 3-1 deficit, scoring four unanswered goals, to win Game Two, 5-3 over the Montreal Canadiens. Cheap Air Max Online . "Thank you for the warm welcome," Beckham said on an 80-degree February morning. In this case, it was soccer weather. The sport moved a step closer to returning to South Florida on Wednesday, when Beckham confirmed he has exercised his option to purchase a Major League Soccer expansion franchise in Miami. http://www.airmaxoutletsale.us/ .Kessy tried to show what he can do playing left wing for the Oilers in 5-0 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday in pre-season action.PARIS -- Chris Froome has a chance to prove over the next three weeks what some suspected in 2012 -- that he could have won last years Tour de France if he hadnt had to give way for his teammate, Bradley Wiggins. Now Wiggins is out injured and that makes the Kenyan-born Briton the favourite to triumph on a particularly mountainous route this year, one that should suit his climbing skills. The 100th edition of the Tour begins Saturday in Corsica -- Frances "Island of Beauty" in the Mediterranean -- the first time cyclings greatest race has set wheel to road in the land of Napoleons birthplace. Another key plotline: the shadow of Lance Armstrong. This the first Tour since he was stripped of his record seven victories for doping, which he finally admitted after years of denials following a detailed report from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. While Armstrong will have no involvement in this years race, fans and media will have a close eye on performance-enhancing drug use in the peloton. That 198-rider peloton, or pack, is to cover 3,479 kilometres (2,162 miles) over three weeks -- 21 stages and two rest days -- before an unusual nighttime finish July 21 on the Champs-Elysees in Paris. The race spends three days on Corsicas winding, hilly roads then begins a counterclockwise run through mainland France along the Mediterranean, into the Pyrenees mountains, then up to Brittany and the fabled Mont-Saint-Michel island citadel before a slashing jaunt southeastward toward the Alps before entering the capital. Long before they knew Wiggins would be out, race organizers gave relatively short shrift to the time trial -- a race-against the clock in which last years champ excels. Theres no opening-day time-trial. The team time-trial returns to the Tour in Stage 4. Two individual time-trials in Stage 11 (33 km, 20.5 miles) and Stage 17 (32 km; 19.8 miles) will count, but the latter one comes before three days in the Alps, which may have more impact on the race outcome. Froome, the 28-year-old Team Sky leader, has ridden in two other Tours. His dazzling start to the season -- winning four of the five races he started -- and his second-place finish behind his British compatriot last year has put him on the top rung of Tour favourites. Last year, Froome was a dutiful, if not always respectful, sidekick to Wiggins. Froome injected drama into the race -- and fanned talk of rivalry -- after he repeatedly outperformed Wiggins in the mountains. At one point, he even gestured at his Team Sky leader to catch up. At the time, Wiggins acknowledged Froome had "talent," but also didnt know what it was like to feel the pressure of being the favourite. Now is Froomes chance, and so far he has seemed to manage the pressure: He won the Tour of Oman, the Criterium International, the Tour of Romandie and the Criterium du Dauphine this year. His only loss this season? Second place in the Tirreno-Adriatico. Two-time Tour winner Alberto Contador is seen as Froomes most likely challenger. The Spaniards career hit a speed bump in 2010 when he tested positive for the banned fat-burning, musscle-building drug clenbuterol at the Tour -- landing him a ban that forced him to sit out last years race. Air max Outlet. . He hasnt yet revived the fear and admiration that his sharp uphill accelerations once inspired. American Tejay Van Garderen, who was a support rider for BMC leader Cadel Evans of Australia last year, will be among the rising stars to watch. The 24-year-old took home the white jersey awarded to the Tours best young rider last year. The question now is whether 2011 Tour champion Evans, now 36, will be in contention enough for Van Garderen to stay in a support role: If not, he could be cut loose. Froome, Contador and Van Garderen are potential contenders for the overall, general classification -- or GC -- victory because they fare well at both mountain-climbing and time trials, the two pillars of todays stage-race competitions. Other would-be contenders include Evans, Jurgen Van Den Broeck of Belgium, a two-time fourth place finisher, Ryder Hesjedal of Canada -- who crashed out last year -- and Joaquim Rodriguez of Spain. The route is among the most mountainous in recent years. Stage 15 on July 14 -- Frances national Bastille Day holiday -- features an uphill finish on the barren Mont Ventoux in Provence. The years "Queen Stage" comes four days later in Stage 18, with not one but two runs up the famed Alpe-dHuez. Froome said Tour planners were "bordering on sadistic" with the selection of the Alpe dHuez stage. Before then, race contenders must emerge unscathed and in contention after the Pyrenees -- including an uphill finish at Ax-3-Domaines ski station in Stage 8 -- and avoid crashes that often bedevil the flat stages. Look for nervous, jostling, and adrenaline-fueled finishes on those days, when sprinters will shine. This years sprinter crop is among the best among recent Tours, headlined by British superstar Mark Cavendish. The 28-year-old native of the Isle of Man, garnering him the "Manx Missile" moniker among fellow Britons and cycling buffs, is the best sprinter of his generation. Cavendish already has 23 Tour stage victories, putting him fourth on the all-time list. Even as cycling tries to get past the doping legacy embodied by the Armstrong saga, the plague of drugs cheats continues. In May, the Italian Giro was marred by three doping cases. Danilo di Luca, who won that race in 2007, tested positive for banned blood booster EPO -- long the designer drug for riders. Fellow Italian Mauro Santambrogio, who won a stage this year, also tested positive for EPO. Frances Sylvain Georges tested positive for Heptaminol, a banned stimulant. Froome said the Armstrong revelations were "a big hit" to both fans and riders, who are now "all being painted with the same brush" -- even if the sport is among the groundbreakers when it comes to anti-doping controls. "I am confident in the testing thats in place," Froome said. "Its up to us to use this as an opportunity to show that the sport has changed and that this is a completely different cycling to that (Armstrong) era." 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