Women's World Cup

Australia, New Zealand meet Saturday to decide Oceania’s World Cup rep.

The winner of this tournament advances to next summer’s Women’s World Cup in the United States.

Joanne Peters had four goals and Sharon Black three as Australia hung a 17-0 embarrassment on Fiji, which finished the match with only nine players after a pair of red-card ejections.

Pernille Andersen had two goals and Wendi Henderson, Jennifer Carlisle and Michelle Cox one apiece in a 5-0 shutout of Papua New Guinea.

Fiji (1-1 in preliminary group play)) and Papua New Guinea (1-1) scored convincing wins Tuesday to earn berths in the Oceania qualifying tournament semifinals. Fiji was a 5-0 victor over Samoa (0-2) in Group A and to advance to play Group B winner Australia (2-0) and Papua New Guinea (1-1) scored a 9-0 whitewash of American Samoa (0-2) in Group B and to earn its match against Group A winner New Zealand (2-0) in the other semi.

Fiji and Papua New Guinea will play before the title match Saturday to decide third place.

Australia beat American Samoa 21-0 and Fiji 14-0, while New Zealand routed Samoa 21-0 and Papua New Guinea 8-0 in earlier matches making a New Zealand and Australia obvious favorites to meet today.

Australia was Oceania’s representative to the 1995 World Cup in Sweden and led 1-0 over the United States before losing 4-1. The Matildas finished last in the field of 12, but have a greater resources as they point toward the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

New Zealand shocked the Aussies in the 1991 Oceania title match, but finished 11th of 12 in the inaugural world championship in China.

On Sunday, Germany and Russia secured the final two European spots for the Women's World Cup 1999. Russia edged Finland, 2-1, in Helsinki, to win the playoff series 4-2 on aggregate. Germany drew 1-1 with Ukraine in Kiev to win that playoff series 6-1 on aggregate.

Germany won the first leg against Ukraine, 5-0 and Sunday, got its lone goal from star forward Birgit Prinz, who scored twice in the first leg victory, Despite the draw, Germany, which had a 14-0 corner kick advantage on the Ukraine, easily advanced.

German captain Martina Voss recorded her 112th appearance to become her country's all-time caps leader.

Russia had won its first leg by a 2-1 score and repeated that score Sunday despite playing in front of almost 3,500 Finland fans, the largest crowd ever to watch a women's soccer match in that country.

Finland got on the board in the 26th minute on Terhi Uusi-Luomalahti’s penalty kick. If the score had held, Finland would have earned the WWC berth based on 'away' goals scored, but six minutes later Irina Grigorieva scored an equalizer for Russia.

In the 73rd minute, Tatiana Egorova scored the winning goal for Russia.

The matches mark the conclusion of the European qualifying process that started in August 1997 and ended 52 matches later.

The four teams involved in these playoffs were runnersup in group play, finishing behind group winners Sweden (Group 1), Italy (Group 2), Norway (Group 3) and Denmark (Group 4), who received automatic invitations.

The six European teams will join South American champion Brazil, Asian qualifiers China, Japan and North Korea, CONCACAF winner Canada and host U.S. at the Women's World Cup.

Four spots remain. Oceania gets one, Africa will send two and the winner of the two-game series between the South American runnerup (Argentina) and the CONCACAF second-place finisher (Mexico) will decide the final competitor.

Of the 12 nations that have already qualified, only Russia and North Korea did not compete in the first two world championships -- in China in 1991, won by the U.S, and Sweden in 1995, captured by Norway.