World Cup watch: Ribery out for France, Schneiderlin in

Coral have lengthened the odds on France winning the World Cup to 25/1, after star player Franck Ribery and fellow forward-thinking player Clement Grenier were ruled out of the Brazil finals.

Bayern Munich winger Ribery injured his back in training, while Lyon’s rising star Grenier is out with a hip injury.

On Ribery, a statement released by the French Football Federation said: “An MRI scan confirmed the sudden worsening of his condition and led the medical staff to conclude his inability to train and play.”

National team coach Didier Deschamps added: “We made checks in the beginning of the afternoon, checks that confirmed the situation has aggravated.”

The French camp have confirmed that Montpellier playmaker Remy Cabella and Morgan Schneiderlin, who plies his trade in the Premier League for Southampton, will replace the injured pair.

Deschamps had also named Maxime Gonalons and Alexandre Lacazette, both Lyon teammates of Grenier, on the standby list, but has ignored the latter despite an impressive season with 15 goals, the second-highest domestic scorer in Ligue 1.

Cabella, who is fast, agile and creative player, is no doubt a direct replacement for Ribery, and although he has just one senior Les Bleus cap, he netted 14 goals in the French top-flight this term.

Ribery has 80 caps and scored five of his 16 international goals in the European section of qualifying for the World Cup. He finished as Les Bleus’ top scorer en route to the Brazil finals, netting more than strikers Karim Benzema and Olivier Giroud combined.

The talented, attack-minded player, has 10 major honours to his name since joining Bayern Munich for a reported 25m Euros in the summer of 2007. These include four Bundesliga titles, as many DFB Pokals and the Champions League in 2013.

With the World Cup imminent, France will need to bed these players in before their opening game against Honduras. They remain odds-on to win that Group E opener, and Deschamps will no doubt use the final warm-up friendly against Jamaica to give Cabella and the uncapped Schneiderlin chances.