India [ Images ] and Pakistan have been grouped together in Pool B for the men's Olympic hockey qualifier, to be played in Madrid, Spain, from March 2 to 13, 2004.

Twelve teams have been divided into two groups based on the FIH rankings as on October 31, 2003..

Malaysia, New Zealand [ Images ], Belgium and Canada [ Images ] are the other teams in the group.

Group A comprises defending Olympic champions The Netherlands, Great Britain, Spain, Japan [ Images ], South Africa [ Images ] and Poland.

The top seven teams from the qualifier will join five teams -- South Korea, Australia [ Images ], Argentina, Germany [ Images ] and Egypt [ Images ], who already qualified for the Olympics [ Images ] by virtue of emerging champions of their respective continents.

Cuba advised the FIH that it does not wish to exercise its right to compete in the qualifying tournament. As a result, Canada, the first reserve country, accepted an invitation to participate.

France [ Images ] is the first reserve country for the tournament.

The pools for the tournament are based upon the FIH Tournament Regulations for a two-pool competition, namely:

TABLE.sco{COLOR: #000000; FONT-FAMILY: arial; FONT-SIZE: 12px; TEXT-DECORATION: none}

Pool A	Pool B
1st Ranked	2nd Ranked
4th Ranked	3rd Ranked
5th Ranked	6th Ranked
8th Ranked	7th Ranked
9th Ranked	10th Ranked
12th Ranked	11th Ranked

Therefore, based upon the official FIH world rankings issued 31 October 2003, the pools will be as follows:

Pool A	Pool B
1. Netherlands (2)	2. Pakistan (5)
4. Great Britain (8)	3. India (6)
5. Spain (9)	6. Malaysia (10)
8. Japan (12)	7. New Zealand (11)
9. South Africa (13)	10. Belgium (14)
12. Poland (17)	11. Canada (15)