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Nations Draw Their Spots in World
Cup Tournament
Brazil, the defending World Cup soccer champion, will play Croatia in
its first game of the 2006 tournament, while the United States will face
the Czech Republic, which is ranked second in the world and is regarded
as an extremely dangerous opponent.
The match-ups were drawn on Friday in Leipzig, Germany, six months
before the World Cup kicks off in Munich with a game that will pit
Germany against Costa Rica. A three-time winner of the World Cup,
Germany is playing host to the tournament for the first time since it
was reunified in 1990.
In an elaborately choreographed ceremony featuring Pelé, the Brazilian
soccer legend, and Heidi Klum, the German supermodel, the 32 teams that
qualified for next year's World Cup were parceled into eight groups of
four. The two top teams in each group will advance to a round of 16,
after which they will be winnowed until the final game in Berlin on July
9.
For the coaches sitting in the hall and hundreds of millions of soccer
fans watching on television or listening on the radio, it was an
exercise in high anxiety - potentially foretelling whether their teams
would sprint to glory in the 2006 World Cup or exit early in ignominy.
"There is no really weak and no really strong group," said Franz
Beckenbauer, the head of Germany's World Cup organizing committee who
led the country to a World Cup title in 1974. "It's rather well
balanced."
Inevitably, though, some countries felt more relief than others.
Germany's coach, Jürgen Klinsmann, said his team could have fared worse
than being placed in a group with Costa Rica, Poland and Ecuador.
The United States, which reached the quarterfinals in 2002, faces
daunting competition in the first round. In their opener, the Americans
face the Czech Republic, which nearly won the European championship in
2004. It will also play Italy, a perennial powerhouse, as well as Ghana,
a first-time qualifier and one of five African countries in the
tournament.
"I'm not disappointed," the United States coach, Bruce Arena, said. "I
expected us to be drawn into a difficult group."
Arena said he was grateful that the United States, which is ranked
eighth in the world, was not placed in a group with Brazil, Argentina or
Germany. And he said he relished the prospect of playing an African
team. But he acknowledged that the Czech Republic and Italy has
goalkeepers who are among the best in the world. "We know it will be
difficult," he said.
Among other potentially treacherous groups is one that comprises
Argentina, the Netherlands, Ivory Coast, and Serbia and Montenegro. In a
twist, three one-time colonies will play against their former overlords:
Trinidad and Tobago versus England, Angola versus Portugal, and Togo
versus France.
The draw is the unofficial kickoff for the tournament, and the German
organizers used it as a kind of road test for next summer's festivities.
On Thursday evening, about 30,000 people braved rainy weather to form a
human chain, stretching from the center of Leipzig to the sports
stadium. Boris Becker was among the German sports luminaries who took
part.
By all accounts, Germany is as well prepared as any recent host country
for the monthlong tournament. Ten of its 12 stadiums are ready, and
construction on the remaining two - in Stuttgart and Kaiserslautern -
will be finished by January, according to the organizing committee.
But Germany's road to the World Cup has not been without bumps. Last
month, a referee was sentenced to two years and five months in prison
for his role in a match-fixing scheme. The scandal cast a shadow over
German soccer for much of the year, as it was preparing for the
tournament.
Soccer's world governing body, FIFA, has also come under sharp criticism
for its ticket sales practices, particularly for charging a
nonrefundable fee to people who enter a lottery for tickets.
Members of the European Parliament protested that people must pay the
price of the ticket, plus the fee of 5 euros, or about $5.90, to enter a
lottery, which will not be held until February 2006. Saying that amounts
to an interest-free loan to FIFA, they have asked the European
Commission to investigate.
"Complaints about tickets will follow us until five minutes before the
kickoff of the final match," Wolfgang Niersbach, executive vice
president of the German organizing committee, said in an interview.
Security is another potential trouble spot. German authorities are
planning a huge police presence in and around the stadiums, but some
officials express fear that they will still not be able to prevent
violence, like the hooliganism that erupted during the 1998 World Cup in
France.
A recent melee between 100 German and Polish soccer fans has added to
those fears, especially since Germany and Poland are scheduled to meet
in the industrial city of Dortmund on June 14.
"Something is brewing," Konrad Freiberg, the head of the German police
union, said in a speech on Friday. "The police will not be able to be
present in sufficient numbers at every site."
The Germany-Poland game will also be shadowed by politics. Relations
between these neighbors - never easy - have been frayed in recent months
by a deal between Germany and Russia to build a pipeline to transport
natural gas to Germany. The pipeline would bypass Poland.
Germany still faces an intense three-week period between the end of the
regular Bundesliga soccer season and the start of the World Cup, when it
must wire the stadiums for the worldwide media.
During that period, the organizers will also replace the turf in the
stadiums with grass that has been grown in Germany and the Netherlands
at secret locations to prevent vandals from damaging it.
"Our goal is to have optimum conditions for the players," Mr. Niersbach
said. "We should not make the mistake to plan marketing and catering,
while forgetting the pitch, which is the most important thing." |
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