Liedjes Voetbal Steekspel 1974

European Qualifiers (1972) - 20 countries
Each group consisted of 6 countries. They would play each other 3 times: once hosting, once playing away, and once in a neutral venue. To get a win point, a country would have to get more leg match victories than their opponent. For a tie to occur, they must win the same amount of matches. Overall on the board, if this is a tie, the goal difference will be used to break it. If this is not possible, the total number of goals will be accounted for. If this cannot be accounted for, an emergency new match between the two in a tie will take place to break the tie, which will go onto penalty shootouts if necessary. The top three teams will qualify from each group. These will qualify for the World Cup. The remaining two slots will be filled by the the highest point difference for the fourth placed teams.

Group A
Neutral venues for this group were located in, , , , and the.

Czechoslovakia, and  qualified. From this group, received a goal difference of 5, qualifying it for a spot in the World Cup as well.

Group B
Neutral venues for this group were located in, , , and.

, and  qualified for the World Cup. No fourth place nations qualified.

Group C
Neutral venues for this group were located in Czechoslovakia,, ,  and.

, and  qualified for the World Cup. No fourth place nations qualified.

Group D
Serbia and Montenegro; and Croatia, two constituent countries of Yugoslavia both qualified for the first time. France, Denmark and Turkey rounded out the qualifiers.

Group F
=North America= North America was allocated 2 countries to qualify into the tournament. Eight countries applied to join the North American qualifiers, a small amount and so two round robins of four countries would be held, with the top country of each group qualifying.

Group X
Mexico will continue to the World Cup. They also qualify for to an international friendly meant to pit the winners of the two groups to find the ultimate victor of North America.

Group Y
Guatemala will continue to the World Cup. They also qualify for to an international friendly meant to pit the winners of the two groups to find the ultimate victor of North America.

Final
Mexico was crowned the best team in North America. Both teams in the final would still qualify to the World Cup in 1965. =South America= South America was allocated 5 countries - 6 including Brazil. 9 countries would take part, meaning that a single round robin of all 9 nations would occur, with the top 5 qualifying to the World Cup. =Asia= Asia was allocated 2 spots for the World Cup. They held a private vote of who should or should not take part. They split the considered countries into Northern and Southern Asia. Australia and New Zealand were placed into Northern Asia to balance out the amount of countries in each to 8, and because they were in Oceania.

Northern Asia

 * North Vietnam
 * North Vietnam
 * North Vietnam
 * North Vietnam
 * North Vietnam
 * North Vietnam

Southern Asia
Immediately, South and North Vietnam were ruled out for being too political. Macau and Hong Kong were also ruled out due to being territories. The Asian team ruled out Australia and New Zealand as well due to them not being in Asia proper. This left just 3 countries in the North: Japan, South Korea and China. Due to Japan already having played in the tournament before, the pick was between China and South Korea were won due to having more representatives who supported them. Due to supporting Taiwan, India withdrew from the pick leaving just 6 countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Pakistan, Iran and Saudi-Arabia. Again, many voters were from East Asia meaning that the Middle Eastern countries and Pakistan barely got any support. Thailand withdrew due to wanting neutrality in the Vietnam War. ultimately won due to a large amount of Chinese immigrants there.

China were condemned by Lied van Liedjes for technically manipulating the vote but no punishment was ever given. Malaysia and China would play in the tournament in 1965. =Africa= Similar to Asia, Africa was allocated 2 spots and no competition was held. Many African nations only became independent one or two years ago and so many didn't have an established football team. was given one of the spot by the principle of having taken part in the tournament before. A vote internally was given between the following four countries: Where after the votes were tallied, was chosen.