Munich to host World Cup Soccer opener

MUNICH—This southern city of beer and football will host the opening match of the 2006 football World Cup tournament in Germany where the home team will take on Costa Rica.
The city hosted the final match of the 1974 World Cup, when the tournament was held in Germany for the first time.
The coach of the host team is elated, as the tournament will kickstart June 9 with the Group A match.
“We will be fully concentrated, but want to get the crowd on our side from the start,” said German coach Juergen Klinsmann, whose ultimate aim is the title.
The city will also see title favourites Brazil play in the Munich World Cup Stadium as the Selecao meet Australia in a Group F game.
The other two group matches in Munich see Tunisia tackle Saudi Arabia in Group H and a Group C game between the Ivory Coast and Serbia-Montenegro.
In the knockout stages, Munich will also host a round of 16 games as well as a semi-final match.
Unlike at the 1974 World Cup, the games are not being played in the Munich Olympic Stadium.
It has been said that only in Munich could an Olympic stadium be deemed insufficient to the city’s football needs, which has resulted in the construction of the awe-inspiring Allianz Arena, home to 1860 Munich and world famous Bayern Munich, Germany’s top club.
A milestone in modern architecture, construction of the stadium, which seats 66,000, was begun in Oct 2002 and finished last summer at a cost of 340 million euros ($402 million).
Bayern Munich have accumulated 19 German titles and have also contributed to German football’s list of honour such names as Franz Beckenbauer and Gerd Mueller.
Munich’s most famous export, however, is its beer. The two-week beerfest, the Oktoberfest, is widely known.
So is the Hofbraeuhaus, a location with much character where locals and tourists alike share long tables and quaff from one-litre glasses — the so-called “mass” — and savour the famous Bavarian “Weisswurst” — white meat sausages, with or without the normal accompaniment of sweet mustard.
In addition, there are six other local producers of the beverage to which the people of Munich dedicate a great popular celebration, the Oktoberfest.
Both Catholic and conservative, the Bavarian capital boasts of its firm attachment to its traditions.
It is the only German metropolis where the men and women are regularly to be seen clad in traditional dress — he in his leather trousers (Lederhosen) and felt hat, ornamented with either feathers or the shaving brush Gamsbart (mountain goats beard), she in the dirndl, a cotton dress with a pronounced cleavage.
The city has some 1.3 million inhabitants and is the third largest in Germany, although many dismiss the capital as somewhat provincial.

—Agencies