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Germany want tough draw but U.S. are unconcerned
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-12-09 08:48

DIFFICULT DRAW

The U.S. team are not among the favourites and Arena is resigned to a difficult draw on Friday.

"I haven't spent two minutes worrying about it," a relaxed Arena said. "We're going to get a seeded team; we're going to get a European team, that's what it is.

"It's going to be tough, but I haven't examined the field -- it's a waste of time putting too much energy into it."

The new World Cup award will be limited to players born before January 1, 1985 and FIFA immediately tipped Messi, England's Wayne Rooney and Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo among possible contenders.

Lothar Matthaeus, who helped Germany win the European Championship at the age of 19 in 1980 and made his World Cup debut two years later is the patron of the award.

He also mentioned Germany's Lukas Podolski and Bastian Schweinsteiger as possible winners.

"They attracted a lot of attention at the Confederations Cup," he said. "But there is a long list of candidates. Let's start the games before we talk about who could win it."

The World Cup finals, which begin on June 9 in Munich, offers a number of other individual awards to players, including the Golden Shoe for the tournament's top scorer, the Golden Ball for the best player and the Yashin Award, named in honour of the late Russian goalkeeper Lev Yashin, for best keeper.

The city of Leipzig rolled out a 2,200-metre long red carpet to welcome overseas visitors to Leipzig for the draw, which will be televised to an estimated 320 million viewers.

Around 30,000 people then took part in a four-km (2.5-mile) long "human chain" that stretched from the centre of Leipzig to the Zentralstadion.


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