{"id":971,"date":"2026-06-02T08:09:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T08:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=971"},"modified":"2026-06-02T08:09:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T08:09:46","slug":"world-cup-2026-wars-sanctions-and-punishments-iraqs-40-year-wait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=971","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Wars, sanctions and punishments – Iraq’s 40-year wait"},"content":{"rendered":"


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It was fitting that Iraq secured a place at the 2026 World Cup by beating Bolivia in Mexico, the location of their first ever appearance on the global stage back in 1986.<\/b><\/p>\n

Karim Allawi was a player 40 years ago as the Lions of Mesopotamia lost all three games against Paraguay, Belgium and the hosts but now he is a fan, desperately hoping that his successors can fare a little better even if games against Norway, France and Senegal look daunting.<\/p>\n

The 66-year-old will, along with the vast majority of the 46 million people in the football-mad country, be watching on 16 June as Iraq take on Erling Haaland’s Norway in Boston.<\/p>\n

“This is truly a group of death and tougher than 1986,” Allawi told BBC Sport. <\/p>\n

“France are multiple-time world champions, Norway are one of the strongest developing European teams, and Senegal are African champions who have qualified for the World Cup several times. <\/p>\n

“I hope they deliver strong performances and achieve better results than we did in 1986.”<\/p>\n

Compared to the past team, this Iraq side, ranked 57th in the world, is full of players with European experience<\/a> such as Ali Al-Hamadi of Ipswich Town, former Manchester United midfielder Zidane Iqbal, now at Utrecht in the Netherlands, and Kevin Yakob, fresh from helping AGF become champions of Denmark.<\/p>\n

Hiring Graham Arnold, who took Australia to the second round of the 2022 World Cup, in 2025 has also paid off. <\/p>\n

The 62-year-old helped Iraq through the third and fourth rounds of qualification, a tight play-off victory against the United Arab Emirates before the win against Bolivia. That was the 21st game on a long road to the finals.<\/p>\n

The celebrations may have died down but the excitement remains. TV sports reporter Nawar Faeq Al-Rikabi told the BBC: “People may think we are the weakest team in the group but anything could happen. <\/p>\n

“We will be fine, there is no pressure on the Iraqi players, they just have to perform and we have quality players who can perform.”<\/p>\n

The addition of Arnold could make the difference. “In 2022, Argentina found it very hard to win against Australia,” added Al-Rikabi. “It will be the same with us. He is very experienced and I think we will do something really good.”<\/p>\n

The target is to improve on 1986. “To score more than one goal would be a new achievement, to win a game would be a great achievement, to qualify for the next stage would be terrific. People have waited so long and we are now ready.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was fitting that Iraq secured a place at the 2026 World Cup by beating Bolivia in Mexico, the location…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}