I hope it will motivate our players to give 200%. Those ********ers are not going to get away with this.
FIFA allows Iraq to play the home games in Iran, except for the Saudi Arabia match. Iraq football federation said that we won't play in Saudi Arabia if they don't travel to Iran.
Friendlies for Group B teams : Australia playing away friendly against England on 27. May , then two home friendlies against Greece on 4. and 7. June Thailand : King's Cup in June UAE : King's Cup in June Saudi Arabia : No confirmed friendlies , possibly going to Europe in June ? Iraq : No confirmed friendlies, but Philippines have sent an invitation to play them Japan playing Kirin Cup on 3. June against Bulgaria , then either Denmark or Bosnia.
Iraq's head coach Radhi Shnaishel asked the FA to arrange 5 friendlies between 10 July and 23 August.
As I heard we'll play against South Korea, Iran, Uzbekistan, Qatar, China, and New Zealand. Pretty much almost all teams in group A. But its not official yet.
I hope Iraq make the World Cup, though I believe Japan and Australia will make. Maybe we can finally have a fifth AFC representative?
There's so many places I would love to visit in Iraq if it was safer: Basra, Irbil, Baghdad, Karbala and Najaf.
The stadium looks great but the pitch is horrible. They shouldn't have opened the stadium until they sorted out the pitch surface. Also, Jassim Ghulam has put on a lot of weight
Update : Thailand will be playing Syria on 3. June in King's Cup UAE playing Jordan in Kings' Cup on 3. June. Saudi Arabia scheduled to have a training camp in Austria in the end of May.
Iraq's World Cup program: Training camp in Austria from 12 till 25 July 2016 with the following three games 15.7 - Kosovo in Austria 20.7 - an unannounced European club in Austria 24.7 - Uzbekistan in Austria 8.8 - Qatar in Qatar 16.8 - S. Korea in Malaysia 22.8 - New Zealand in New Zealand
I will be very surprised if the IFA actually manages to organise all of these games to be honest. Remember when they promised to organise good friendlies a couple of years ago and we ended up playing just the Liberia B team and no one else?
Australia is the best side in Asia on paper imo. Along with Japan. This will be the strongest Australian side they've taken to a major tournament in quite a while. This side will be stronger than the one that won the Asian Cup. Quite a few of their younger players have come along quite a bit this season which like I said before, means they will be even more formidable than when they won the Asian Cup. Rogic is a star at Celtic now, he has improved an increadible amount in 12 months and will be a nightmare to deal with in these WCQ, Brad Smith broke into the Liverpool senior side this year, he will be far too quick and powerful for most Asian defences, Jedinak regained his starting place at Crystal Palace, they have guys like Luongo at QPR, Leckie and Kruse in Germany at Ingolstadt and Bayer Leverkusen, Aaron Mooy is easily the best player still in Australia and looks like moving to Brugge or Ajax potentially in the next few weeks. Their other european based players have been snapped up on big wages in the CSL. They will be very very hard to beat imo.
Good decision from FIFA. That would give us an advantage against the Saudis, as we are used to play games at neutral venues. FIFA is thinking about lifting the ban for friendlies in Iraq. It shocked me to be honest, after all those bombings.
Once you cut through all the unneeded rubbish in this post, it pretty much makes sense. There is very little to be gained in playing friendlies against Asian opponents at this time of year. There is no benefit commercially or in terms team development, playing against the same teams and styles that you see all the time.
Is this the 2018 WCQ Group B thread or Iran vs other Asian teams thread? Iran is not in Group B. All those off topic posts are becoming annoying...