"I have no regrets," he said. "I kept trying to put myself in a position to score and there were no one-on-one situations. You have regrets when you miss those."

Henry blamed a slow, dry pitch for the game's lack of pace and admitted that he ran out of steam in the last 30 minutes of a match played under stifling heat early in the evening.

"Our next match will be played later and I hope they will water the pitch," he added, his mind already on France's second Group G game, against South Korea on Sunday in Leipzig.

Asked if he was afraid France might fail to survive a group also featuring Togo, Henry said: "No, I'm afraid to die but I'm never afraid of losing a football game."