The French only arrived in the island archipelago four hours before kick-off on Saturday after bad weather made landing impossible on Friday.

During Friday they spent 11 to 12 hours in transit including unscheduled stopovers in Aberdeen, Scotland and Bergen, Norway where they spent Friday night after two aborted landing attempts in the Faroes.

They finally managed to land in the Faroes on Saturday and play the Euro 2008 qualifier which they won 6-0 but the problems were far from over, the www.lequipe.fr website reported.

Health and safety regulations meant that the pilot could not meet the original departure time of Saturday evening as he had spent too much time in the cockpit over the previous 36 hours.

Finally the return journey could begin and they landed back at the Villacoublay air base at 1500 on Sunday.

France play Lithuania in Nantes on Wednesday evening in another Euro 2008 qualifier.