El seleccionador de Irak, Graham Arnold, declaró: "Somos capaces de hacer algo que sorprenderá al mundo".
Australia ha tenido que lidiar con la guerra, un calor de 50 °C y eliminatorias para llevar al país a su primer Mundial en 40 años. Veintiocho meses, 21 partidos, cuatro rondas, un penalti en el minuto 117 y una eliminatoria. Un entrenador atrapado en Dubái, donde observa cómo comienza la guerra sobre el agua, con bombas que lo sacuden todo. Un equipo atrapado primero en Bagdad y luego en Jordania, con misiles volando a su alrededor. Un viaje apresurado de 9000 millas hasta…
Australian has had to contend with war, 50C heat and playoffs to steer country to a first World Cup in 40 years
Twenty-eight months, 21 games, four rounds, a 117th-minute penalty and a playoff. A coach stuck in Dubai where he watches war start over the water, bombs shaking everything. A team trapped in Baghdad first and Jordan next, missiles flying around them. A scrambled 9,000-mile trip to Mexico where it all rests on one night, the very last country to make it. And, when they do finally land, the hero whose goal took them there is held up by the FBI and the man whose photographs are due to document history is turned back. There may never have been a journey to a World Cup quite like Iraq’s.
“It’s been an experience,” Graham Arnold says. And the 62-year-old Australian coach who led them through it all – the “football nut” who is their other “dad” and gets mobbed everywhere he goes – is adamant that it’s not over yet. “Now it’s time to show the world what we’ve got.” Listening to him, you can’t help but believe it. Not least because he did when no one else would.
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