Confirmed fixtures for this year: 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification 24.03 Iraq v Thailand 29.03 Iraq v Vietnam It will be an important year for the national team. 2 crucial games against Thailand and Vietnam, which should be won to advance to the next 2018 WCQ round and 2019 Asian Cup. We trust in you Iraq!
I'm not optimistic about the WCQ, but then again I wasn't optimistic last year about the AC and we ended up reaching the semis. We will make it out of this group, hopefully in 1st but it looks like it could be 2nd, which still could be good enough to make it straight to the AC (because we are one of the best 2nd-place teams) and into WCQ final round, but even if that happened I would be very disappointed to finish behind Thailand and it wouldn't do the players any good in terms of confidence heading into the final round against the likes of Japan, Australia etc. In the final round, I don't think we will get far at all. We need to appoint Radhi Shenashel or a good foreign manager, because Yahya is not up to the job. Inshallah Iraq will do us proud (and we will finally find a replacement for Younis )
Alwan's job is on the line in the last 2 games. If we win both games convincingly I don't mind him continuing with the NT. However, if we do struggle and fail or barely qualify, I want him out. No more excuses or whatsoever.
Honestly I don't understand where guys find the confidence in Alwan. My main problem is that the team doesn't look organized. Under Radhi, and to a lesser degree under Salman the team looked organized. They played with a gameplan and created some fantastic attacks with beautiful passes. Under Alwan they seem disorganized and out of sync. On the other hand, that may be because the other teams are playing ultra defensively, we played very well against Thailand which was the only team that played fairly offensive football. I really do wish to see Iraq in the WC and I don't mind who lead us there as long as we put up a good performance. Just don't repeat the game against Vietnam, that was one of the most pathetic performances I've ever seen.
I'm not confident at the moment, but I don't wanna be a pessimist + I don't like switching coaches. If you made a choice stick to it. Give the guy the 2 final matches and support Alwan as long as he is our head coach. He started well, introduced young players to the squad, and played offensive football until the Thailand game. After that game, Alwan began to screw things up and all of a sudden became scared. Just wait for the final matches against Thailand and Vietnam. I'm positive that we will beat them at home.
There is a friendly planned on 17.3.2016 against Syria in Teheran in preparation for our final WCQ matches.
I get your point, and yes he did fairly well at the start but even then he felt like a step down from Radhi. Hopefully the NT can get past these hurdles and get a long term contract with Radhi.
Maybe in the future but Alwan is our coach now and he should complete his job at least until the Vietnam game. After that the FA will evaluate his campaign, and decide to keep or sack him. If he convinces us with a strong lineup and good tactics then I don't have any problems with him. Remember Carlos Quieroz with Iran, and what happened during his first years? He lost to Lebanon and tied Qatar, yet they sticked with him and look where he got them. I'm not saying Alwan is the ideal option, but I want stability (not chopping and changing every few months).
I understand your point, but there's a big difference between a coach like Quieroz and Yahya Alwan. Yahya Alwan was a bad choice from the start. There's not need to force ourselves to endure bad performances because of a bad decision that was made earlier. If a coach is bad, then he's bad simple as that. Having said that, I don't think a lot would change anyways no matter who we get as the coach. If we get Radhi back, he won't stay long because he wants to do things his way without FA involvement and the FA wouldn't accept that. We see this happen all the time. FA yes-men get fired endlessly due to the inevitable bad results they get, and Coaches who care about the team and want to work professionally end up "resigning" due to disagreements with the FA. In the first case the FA look like the good guys by removing the bad coach, and in the second case the Coach looks selfish for not sticking with the team. Both ways the FA wins and the fans lose. Whether Yahya leaves or stays, I don't think it will make a difference for us.
It will make a difference though. Radhi came in after a difficult period with Hakim and he immediately changed the style of play, and managed to get the best out of the same players as Hakim. We will see what happens in the coming period..
There will be an impact with a better manager, but for how long? As I said, the kinds of managers who can improve the team don't accept FA interference which is why they never last long.
I don't think a local coach like Radhi, who has support and influence within and outside the FA, will leave Iraq so easily. He can put pressure on the FA to give him what is required. ..but we still have Yahya Alwan now and as long as he is the head coach we have to support him and the NT to get the best out of it.
Was watching these videos, till I came across this comment by IraqiLambo "With Iraq's new team of young and talented players along with our good experienced older players, we will beat australia no problem, and then we'll move on to crush Oman and Jordan as we should have done earlier. Zico has brought a new generation of iraqi players today" Dont worry Habibi, I'm not calling you out, we all thought the same at that moment. If only...
1994 was our best chance actually. One win against Japan would get us through. Instead we tied them 2-2.... 2014 was very close too, but we were too disorganized and it's an huge disadvantage to play all your games on a neutral venue.
If Zico stayed I don't doubt that we'd have made it to the world cup. The FA killed our chances just because of the greed and selfishness.
http://www.iraqfpg.com/Docs.ArabicViewer/3a6c2529-17f1-450e-8bb1-15a6e2876f14/Default.aspx Many incidents happened with Saif Salman according to the FA. I'm glad he is banned of representing Iraq. He also fought with Yaser Kasim in June after the Japan game.
Look at this from Iraq's match with Paraguay in the 1986 World Cup. Skip to 2:12 in the video. The referee completely robbed us of a goal!! This is the first time I've seen this. He blew the whistle for half time just as Radhi was about to head it into the net. Did he not understand the rules of football? You don't blow the whistle when a team is on a dangerous attack, let alone whilst on a corner kick is being taken!! We should have got a point in the World Cup but we ended with nothing
We deserve our lower rankings considering the results. Honestly I don't know what the FA is doing, I don't really think they know what they're doing.
Saudi Arabia gathered a lot of points in World Cup qualifiers.. We dropped valuable points against Thailand and Vietnam, otherwise we would've got more points as well. Anyway, that's not our biggest issue. We need to advance to the final round. No matter which group we get in, we have to focus on our team.