Good draw for Japan
FRANKFURT (Kyodo) Japan's hopes of appearing in the World Cup finals for the third consecutive time were boosted Friday after it was handed a relatively easy draw for the Asian qualifiers for the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
The 2002 World Cup cohost was placed in Group 3 along with Oman, India and Singapore at the preliminary draw in Frankfurt.
The Asian qualifying competition is scheduled to be played in a league format with four teams in each of the eight groups playing each other twice in a home-and-away format.