Radhi says he's building a new team, but he still calls up losers like Kalaf, Bahjat, Hameed, etc... Which of these players is new other than Rebin? What a liar.
I have to say Sulaka is much better than Natiq, Nadhim or whatsoever. He should be our new CB along with Ahmad Ibrahim
I just hate how he fazes certain players out , while Abdul Zahraa and other players are always the first ones called up weather in form or not.
He needs to pick up his balls and make the right changes in the 2nd half . Why is he being defensive we need to win every single game to have a slight chance of making it right ???
Better than nothing I guess. Ahmed Yasin bailed us out. Honestly if we had a real coach we would top this group. None of the other teams are any good.
I have to say we were really unlucky throughout these qualifiers. Offside goals, refs against us. It broke us up. I'm glad we didn't lose today, and got some confidence. Now let's move on to KSA!
We should have had a penalty today too. Both games against Australia we had a clear penalty denied. It was a clear handball today. At the same time, a strong team makes its own luck. When you play well and create chances, the opposition are more likely to make mistakes you can take advantage of. My only concern now is beating Saudi. Hope we crush those rats. Their fans and media are always incredibly disrespectful to us and their team has been winning games with referee decisions throughout these qualifiers. Either they are the luckiest team in asia or there is something else happening.
Very encouraging performance. I think even though we've had poor results in this round, we have improved as a team under Radhi. You wouldn't have seen that type of performance under Hakeem or Yahya for example. We should have got a point from the Japan game, 3 against Saudi and possibly 3 from this Australia game (a draw was a pretty fair result all in all though as were ridiculously wasteful) and if we did we would be right in the mix. Individual mistakes, referees and team selections are the reason why we are out. I think Radhi needs an advisor to help him with team selections. I don't know what goes through his head when he drops Ahmed Yasin and replaces him with Amjad Kalaf. You guys know how much I love Amjad as a Shorta fan but the guy is a squad player at most. I was surprised he was even called up but no way should he be starting any games. In his prime I would say yes, but he's past his prime now. Firstly he's 3 years older than his official age (I wonder if Radhi knows this) and he even lost all his pace due to injuries which was his what his whole game was based around. Ahmed Yasin is one of our most dangerous players for the past 5 years, I just don't understand Radhi's thinking behind it. As far as I remember we didn't see strange selections like this in the 2015 Asian Cup when he had two advisors. The moment that Yasin and Hammadi came in and we switched the formation you could immediately tell we started to play better. Replacing Alaa with Bahjat was nonsense to be honest. It's a home tie that we need 3 points in and Radhi decides to change the whole formation minutes before the start of the game by bringing in a 5th defender. Surely the players have been working all week on the 4-2-3-1 formation, you don't switch the formation minutes before the game and throw the plan out the window. Dhurgham is still weak defensively but I thought he was great going forward. Sulaka was solid too. There are positives and as the way things are now I'd like to see Radhi stay on, hire the advisors we had in the 2015 Asian Cup and see how we fare in 2019. There are definitely reasons to be optimistic about Iraqi football's future I think. The most frustrating thing though is that Korea, Japan, Australia, Iran, Saudi, Uzbekistan... really none of them are very good. The last two qualifying games have definitely been wasted opportunities for us.
I saw some of it, the last half hour. I was encouraged by what I saw however as always we have no midfield. At least the players pressed the Australian defenders and made them commit mistakes. The same problem still persist, we can't build attacks from the back and have to either get the ball into a dangerous position by pressing the defenders or being lucky and hoofing the ball. Ali Adnan did really well on the wing from what I saw. I give often give him a hard time, but I think he deserves some credit this game. This is the Asian level, worst continent in football by a mile. The only half decent team is Iran, mostly because they can defend fairly competently and have a good manager. Japan, Australia, Korea, Uzbekistan and even Iran are very beatable with proper tactics and work.
The outstanding players today were Rebin Sulaka and Ahmed Yasin for sure. Amazing players, and much needed in this team.
I think encouraging is the right word. Still made a lot of mistakes and Australia were wasteful as well with their chances, we could have lost. Still some strange team selection choices as well. But on the whole, encouraging. We have to build on this now in the Saudi match. Lose that game and everyone will be angry. I'm still angry that they got the game moved to Jeddah when it was meant to be in a neutral ground. I wish to beat them so bad. Also check out our player ratings for today's game on our website: http://iraqi-football.com/iraq-aus-player-ratings. Do you agree/disagree with any of them?