A B C D
E F G H
National sides shun Canada
There will be no Argentina. No Scotland. No Chile. No games.
"Nobody wants to play Canada,'' says Gary Sampley, the Alberta Soccer Association boss of the dates reserved for late May international games at Commonwealth Stadium.
Scotland was a possibility but chose to play games in the U.S. prior to France '98 World Cup action for bigger money. The one team which they had in the bag, Iran, for a game in Toronto, cancelled.
It was hoped they could land Argentina, but they had other plans. And most European countries didn't want to come to North America and then return to France.
"It's disappointing for us because we want to see international soccer here on an annual basis,'' said Sampley.
There is, however, a Plan B.
"We're going to go after the better-known European club teams,'' he said.
"We'll be trying bring at least two teams here after the World Cup and before their European seasons start in late August.
"The type of teams we'd be looking at would be Juventus, Manchester United, Liverpool, Bayern Munich ... the very top teams.''
The idea would be a three-game event featuring two European teams and Canada each playing one game against each other, similar to the Canada Cup event featuring Chile-Northern Ireland-Canada three years ago.
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GROUP A: Brazil, Morocco, Norway, Scotland
GROUP B: Austria, Cameroon, Chile, Italy
GROUP C: Denmark, France, Saudi Arabia, South Africa
GROUP D: Bulgaria, Nigeria, Paraguay, Spain
GROUP E: Belgium, Holland, Mexico, South Korea
GROUP F: Germany, Iran, United States, Yugoslavia
GROUP G: Colombia, England, Romania, Tunisia
GROUP H: Argentina, Croatia, Jamaica, Japan