Domenech, who will be replaced by Laurent Blanc after the finals and has everything to prove in South Africa, shelved his cautious, 4-2-3-1 formation for a bolder, 4-3-3 system with two wingers and one centre forward for his side's three warm-up games.
Many fans and observers were delighted to see France, who have many creative players with a taste for attack, field just one holding midfielder instead of two and signal their intention to race the ball forward at last.
"The system offers interesting solutions up front but has its downside which is that it does not give as many guarantees defensively," Domenech told reporters after that.
The most passionate advocate of the old-fashioned, flamboyant 4-3-3 in France, Guy Roux shared the France coach's view: "Going forward, it looked very good," Roux, who coached French side Auxerre for decades and always fielded 4-3-3 formations, told Reuters.
"Defensively, I would say it was a start, and I wouldn't say a good start," added the now retired coach, at the World Cup as a television pundit.
"We realise we have a lot of fine-tuning to do and little time to do it," midfielder Alou Diarra, his mind already on France's first game against Uruguay on Friday in Cape Town, told reporters.
"We can't really say we have improved during the warm-up games," he added. "We still need time to adapt (to the new system) and don't have much left."
