nyssa@abnji.UUCP (nyssa of traken) (03/28/85)
There are a few international competitions. For clubs, the big one is the Intercontinental Cup, held in December in Tokyo between the European Cup holder the the Liberatadories (South American) Cup holder. It is one match. Europe holds a national championship every four years, falling on a leap year. Two years in advance, the National teams are grouped at random into seven groups. These play a league schedule. The winners go to a final group in a single country. (The host country automatically qualifies.) There two groups of four play each other once. The group winner plays the opposite runner up in the semi finals, and the winners meet in the finals. The World Cup is held every four years, two years after a leap year. Each continent sends a number of teams to the finals, as well as the host country and cup holder. Presently, they are: North and Central America:1 South America: 3 Africa: 2 Asia: 2 Europe: 13 Other (winner of 14th European place and Oceanic 1st place, aggregate): 1 Total: 24. There are discussions about how this will be run. Last time, they formed 6 groups of four. Each team played the others in the group once. The top two in each group advanced to the next round, where 4 groups of 3 played a similar system. Those winners advanced to the semi-finals, then the finals. Current holders: European Cup: Liverpool Cup Winner's Cup: Juventus (Italy) UEFA Cup: Tottenham Hotspur Super Cup: Aberdeen Intercontinental Cup: Indepeniante (Argentina) European Cup: France South American Nations Cup: Uruguay World Cup: Italy