Graham Arnold says Iraq’s World Cup journey has been shaped by war, sleepless nights, chaotic travel, and even a last-minute visa and FBI stop at O’Hare—yet he insists the group stage is still an opportunity to “shock the world.”
In the early hours of a hotel in Lisbon, after 36 hours of missiles and bombs around them, Graham Arnold waited at 2am and asked his players one question that felt like a match struck in the dark: what are we going to use this war as—an excuse, or motivation?
“It’s been an experience. ” the 62-year-old Australian coach says now. looking back at the kind of World Cup build-up that can’t be separated from what’s happening beyond the pitch. He was stuck in Dubai watching the shaking start over the water. His team was trapped in Baghdad first, then in Jordan, while airspace closures and attacks rewrote the calendar. Even when they finally reached Mexico. the journey didn’t end cleanly—one of their scorers was held at O’Hare. and another part of the staff’s papers was turned back.
There may never have been a journey to a World Cup quite like Iraq’s, Arnold says. And in his version of what comes next, it isn’t over yet.
The chain of decisions that pulled Iraq and Arnold together began in May 2025, when his agent called about the Iraq national team. Arnold says he was told an offer had arrived but that he wouldn’t want it. He asked why not. Three days were given to decide.
It came after Iraq sacked Jesús Casas and almost the entire staff following a 2-1 defeat to Palestine in the third round of the Asian qualifiers. Arnold felt the answer “seemed a no-brainer,” but he agreed to take it fast.
Twelve months later, Iraq landed in Chicago for their first World Cup since 1986.
For Arnold. the timing also mattered because he had only just resigned as Australia coach the previous year. explaining that he felt “cooked.” When the job didn’t keep coming. he says he struggled with the mental shift. “At first the family wasn’t that supportive and friends were worried because of the perception of Iraq,” he admits. “But I was out of the game for six. seven months after the Socceroos and I was going a bit stir crazy.”.
When you coach, he says, every day has a purpose. With that removed, it becomes “mentally… not easy to deal with.”
The draw for him was also personal—he had played Iraq over the years. One memory stands out from 2007, when they beat Australia 3-1. Every time he watched them. he says. “they had good players but there was something not right.” Why hadn’t they qualified for a World Cup?. He saw their quality as the challenge, and the four-decade absence as the opportunity.
That absence became a promise he wanted to turn into something Iraq could carry into the tournament. “If they had qualified six or 10 years ago I probably wouldn’t have done it but the fact that they hadn’t qualified for 40 years was a great challenge. a great opportunity to make 46 million people proud and happy.”.
The team’s obsession with football is part of why he says the belief could be built at all. He describes arriving in Baghdad and finding a public holiday where Real Madrid played Barcelona—everyone watching. He says they follow the Premier League and pack stadiums when top Iraqi teams play, with crowds of 30,000, 40,000, 50,000. Their drive, he adds, was tied to the country’s flag.
He also noticed pressure right away. One of the first things he saw, he says, was that when the players came into camp they were “nearly having panic attacks because it was so much pressure.”
Arnold’s response was psychology and discipline. He says he banned social media after seeing 26 players obsessed with their phones, and told them that if they kept feeding themselves with what he describes as lies and negativity, he would not select them.
To make the message land, he built the team around family language. He told them he was their dad and they were his boys. His staff were brothers and thus their uncles. There were also rules he insisted on. On the first day, he wanted to do a presentation and four players turned up late.
“If you’re not prepared to be on time, you have no chance of qualifying,” he says he told them.
He says he worked hard not to impose Australia onto them—he couldn’t come to Baghdad and “make everyone Australian.” So he lived in Baghdad for eight months, to understand daily life and habits that training could not ignore.
He describes the heat as a practical force: “It’s stinking hot – 45C, 50C – so no one goes out during the day.” He says dinner can be at 11 at night, and that affects training sessions. Prayer times do too.
There were other adjustments. Nine of the squad were born in Europe—Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Norway and the UK. A couple had never been in Iraq. Then there was the language.
Arnold says about 80% speak Arabic, and that it affects on-field performance. Early on, he says he selected the best players for their positions and strengths, only to realize some couldn’t speak the language, so there was no communication.
Later, he moved toward line-ups that could solve that problem: English-speaking players on the left side of the field and Arabic on the right. He says a centre-back and central midfielder who speak both help carry communication across “all on the same page.”
Football results mattered too, but so did the odd, disruptive rhythm of the road to Mexico. Arnold says Iraq arrived in the third round and finished third. In the fourth. they missed out to Saudi Arabia on goals scored after games were meant to be played in supposedly “neutral” Saudi Arabia—he calls it “wrong.”.
In the fifth in November 2025, Iraq drew 1-1 against the United Arab Emirates in Abu Dhabi with five players missing. Then preparations for the return began in Basra: the electricity went, the bus broke down, and the floodlights failed.
Arnold also recalls the hotel at Basra and the late-night noise. He says he headed downstairs to ask thousands of fans to keep quiet because he and his players couldn’t sleep. The drummer. he says. replied: “Sure. coach. what time can we start up again?” Arnold told him 5pm—and they did it “on the dot.”.
By the end of the return game, it came down to a moment in added time. Arnold says that in the 17th minute of added time, the referee was called to the pitchside monitor for a handball. He says he hadn’t seen it and he didn’t see the penalty with which Amir al-Ammari put Iraq through to the playoff.
He says he was hiding behind the bench with his interpreter, former Sydney FC player Ali Abbas, which he says “isn’t surprising” given the penalties taken in training the night before. Al-Ammari scored and sent Iraq through to face Surinam or Bolivia in Monterrey, Mexico.
More obstacles followed.
Arnold says the wars going on created distraction. but his description also becomes a timeline of what war does to sport. He was woken by helicopters at 4am and driven to Kuwait on advice from the Australian ambassador after the US embassy in Baghdad was evacuated seven months earlier. He was in Dubai watching a player when Israel and the US attacked Iran on the morning of 28 February. killing Ali Khamenei.
Arnold says barely 2km away across the water, it was the loudest noise he’s ever heard and the hotel moved. Due to fly back to Iraq that day to prepare for the playoff, he says he was told the airspace was closed. He was stuck for 10 days, while his team and staff were trapped in Baghdad.
He says he asked FIFA to postpone the game. FIFA calls it “Fifa Fair Play,” he says, but he argues it wasn’t fair that they couldn’t get players and backroom staff out of Baghdad. He says they ended up helping instead, including getting the team a charter flight to Amman, Jordan.
The players had to do a 28-hour bus trip. Then in Jordan they were stuck for 36 hours because missiles and bombs were going off around the hotel. Eventually, Arnold says, they got to Lisbon and from there to Monterrey.
In Iraq’s run to the final World Cup place, there were still football moments. Iraq beat Bolivia 2-1, and the winner was Aymen Hussein. But the tournament was never going to arrive like an ordinary tournament.
Arnold says Hussein was stopped at O’Hare airport heading into the US for their final World Cup preparations. Two days later, he says Somali referee Omar Artan was barred from entering.
Arnold describes it plainly: “Everything’s fine 1781569684.” He says Aymen got interviewed with six other players and was stuck for about eight hours with the FBI and US security, but that he was then here with the team, training well and seeming fine.
He adds that the US has its “ways with passports and visa control,” and that it’s sad because you want everything to be about football, but these things happen.
There is also a lingering worry about family. Arnold says Iraqi airspace closed again as well. That means players hoping to bring their families across for games can’t get them out of Baghdad. “Hopefully the airspace will get reopened and they can get here to watch their sons. husbands. family. make the country proud.”.
When Iraq finally landed and got ready, Arnold says the weight of qualification coming off their shoulders changed the mood. Victory over Andorra and a 1-1 draw with Spain increases confidence. He compares it to his own World Cup experience. saying this will be his fourth World Cup and that results at tournaments don’t always go the “right” way—he points to Saudi Arabia beating Argentina at the last.
His key belief is mental readiness. “We’ve got a very, very tough group with Norway, France and Senegal,” he says. He calls it the “Group of Excitement,” not the Group of Death, and insists Iraq has “absolutely no pressure at all” because everyone expects them to lose all three games.
The real test, he says, starts when they cross the white line: be brave, play with energy and excitement.
Then he returns to the promise he made after that war-torn travel and after midnight questions that wouldn’t go away: the chance to show what Iraq has.
“It’s a privilege to be against fantastic players like Erling Haaland, Kylian Mbappé and Sadio Mané. It’s huge: a chance to show what we’ve got,” Arnold says. “I’m big on making them believe we’re capable of doing something that will shock the world and I truly believe that at this World Cup it will happen.”.
Iraq national team Graham Arnold World Cup Ali Khamenei Aymen Hussein Amir al-Ammari Ali Abbas Omar Artan FIFA Fair Play Baghdad travel Monterrey playoff Norway France Senegal