You know we’re talking soccer, don’t you? Baseball puts up some zeroes, but halfway through a baseball game the odds are really high that someone will have scored. In soccer? Not necessarily. Especially when you are France.

Yes, France. World Cup champion in 1998. World Cup runner-up in 2006.

Tied 0-0 with Romania at halftime here in Stade de France.

The crowd is getting quieter … and you can see how they might turn a bit surly if something doesn’t happen, and soon.

France has scored only eight goals in six Group 6 matches, and that includes one with the Faroe Islands — which France beat only 1-0 last month. Ack.

Romania has been both passive and awful … I can decide which is the more dominant characteristic. Early, France had scads of chances to get a goal and get this party started. But whiff followed whiff … all three starting forwards — Thierry Henry, Andre-Pierre Gignac and Nicolas Anelka — missed chippies in the first 45.

Romania conceded half the field for most of the first half, and looked like the slowest collection of (putatively) world-class players I’ve seen in a very long time. Then the Romanians got a couple of shots at scoring, late in the half, and the vibe in the stadium that “France will score any minute now” seemed to morph into “we may not score and, actually, we might give one up” … and the sort of surly funk the crowd has sunk into.

Franck Ribery is warming up, and the crowd is cheering him, as the second half begins. About time to get him in there, maybe for Gignac, who has been awful at center forward. Or for Yoann Gourcuff, who has been almost as shaky at attacking mid.

Let’s see if anything happens.

Meantime, the most significant finals in so far today … Denmark 1, Portugal 1 (the Portuguese are running out of games to get up in the standings), Sweden 2, Hungary 1 (Sweden just jumped over Portugal and into third place in Group 1); and Cameroon 2; Latvia 1,  Israel 0, so latvia gets three points on the road and Israel is now pretty much finished;, Gabon o, at Gabon, and the feel-good story of the Kids from Nowhere just got shaky. Gabon was leading the group and Cameroon was last, but things just tightened up.

Ah! Henry just scored for France. Panic averted.