Aymen Hussein Leads Iraq Past Bolivia Into World Cup Finals
Aymen Hussein helped push Iraq into the World Cup finals for the first time in 40 years after a 2-1 win over Bolivia in Monterrey. The result sealed the final spot in the tournament and ended a long wait that stretched back to Iraq’s previous appearance in Mexico.
Iraq got there through 20 qualifiers and then a travel gauntlet that few teams would call normal. Several staff and players had to reach Baghdad by car or bus because airspace was closed, and some of those trips took up to eight hours before the squad kept moving toward the playoff.
Monterrey and Baghdad
René Meulensteen, who works as assistant to Graham Arnold, said: “They had to travel from different cities to Baghdad by car or bus.” He added: “Some of those journeys took up to eight hours.”
From Baghdad, the squad then travelled roughly 15 hours on bumpy roads to Amman in Jordan. Fifa arranged a private charter, but even that move came after a nine-hour delay before the team could head onward. The trip still stretched into an eight-hour flight to Lisbon, a two-hour stopover there and then a 12-hour journey to Mexico.
Meulensteen on Iraq
The assistant coach tied the playoff in Monterrey back to the route the team had taken to reach it. “We told the players: ‘Let’s realise what kind of journey we’ve had to get here and perhaps the match is meant to be here, as Iraq’s previous World Cup participation was staged in Mexico,’” he said.
He also described the mood back home once the win was secured. “It was absolute madness in Baghdad, where it was early in the morning,” Meulensteen said. Iraq’s football history adds more weight to the result: the team finished fourth at the 2004 Olympics, beat Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal at those Games, and won the 2007 Asian Cup.
Iraq in Group Play
Iraq will now face France, Senegal and Norway in the World Cup group stage, a draw Meulensteen summed up bluntly: “It’s like Manchester United against Grimsby.” The 62-year-old former Manchester United coach under Alex Ferguson also said: “You should hear them on the bus to training and matches, singing and listening to music. It’s absolutely brilliant.”
For Iraq, the 2-1 win in Monterrey is more than a ticket to the finals. It closes a 40-year gap and sends a squad that had to cross buses, roads, delays and three countries just to get there into the game’s biggest stage.
