Draw made for soccer

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33426, 7 January 1974, Page 12

Draw made for soccer

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) ( FRANKFURT. , Australia, which won I a marathon battle to j reach the final 16 of the , World Cup soccer, is included in one of the i toughest draws for the 1 tournament starting in ' June. It will meet the favourite. . West Germany, as well as East Germany and Chile in group one for the preliminary round-robin tournament • i which will be played in Ber-' 1 lin and Hamburg. The big surprise was the ■ pairing of West and East Ger--1 many. Most observers had -, assumed that they would be Hkept apart in the group draw, •i Australia will start its first ■ ( World Cup finals against East!

Germany in Hamburg on June 14, Four days later it will meet West Germany at Hamburg, and then will play Chile in the 1936 Olympic Games stadium in West Berlin, on June 22. Brazil, the defending champion, and the only country to win three World Cups, sets; the finals in motion by meeting either Jugoslavia or Spain in Frankfurt on June 13. Jugoslavia and Spain meet lin Frankfurt on February 1.3 to decide the sixteenth, and last, place in the finals after sharing top place in their iqualifying group. In the same group are} Scotland and Zaire, who are playing in their first finals, as are East Germany, Australia and Haiti. The groups are.—l; West Germany, Chile, East Germany. Australia. 2: Brazil. 1 Scotland, Spain or Jugoslavia,

Zaire. 3: Uruguay. Nether-, lands, Bulgaria, Sweden. 4: Italy, Argenina, Poland, Haiti. Each group will play a round-robin tournament, before two teams from each go on to the quarter-finals. They are expected to be West and East Germany, Brazil and Scotland, Uruguay and BuN garia, and Italy and Poland. The winners of group one and three, as the runners-up in groups two and four, will go into Section A, the win-, ners of groups two and four with the runners-up one and three into Section B. After further matches on ■'June 26, June 30, and July 3, the runners-up in each section will meet in Munich on July 6 to decide third and fourth places, and the winners of each group will meet .■the next day in the final.