Not so fast… club football ends, but lets go to the national teams – qualifications for the World Cup finals stretched from 1972 to the end of 1973, when the finalists became known and preparations for the finals started. The best abbreviation is the final tables of course. But elimination of rabble first: the world was divided in 16 groups – 3 of them were for the rabble, for in football equality has peculiar definition. In short, one European group equals a group dedicated to a whole continent. Luckily South America has only 10 countries… if it were different, the rest of the world probably would not have a single place in the finals. Well, reality supported the system – outside Europe and South America only Mexico was somewhat competitive. Anyway, Asia and Oceania (the lowest of the low) were combined together to compete for one spot at the finals – it was complicated and relatively ill-fated staged tournament, spitting out Australia to go the World Cup at the end. Actually, it did not matter at all who were Asian winners – no country had even half-noticeable football.
1973 Cangaroos.