{"id":47624,"date":"2026-04-02T00:59:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T00:59:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/47624\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T00:59:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T00:59:01","slug":"world-cups-last-qualifier-iraq-plot-shock-while-japan-confident-of-making-more-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/47624\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup\u2019s last qualifier Iraq plot \u2018shock\u2019 while Japan confident of making more history"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Coach Graham Arnold has challenged his players to \u201cshock the world\u201d after Iraq became the 48th and final team to qualify for the World Cup on Tuesday with a nerve-shredding 2-1 win over Bolivia in an intercontinental play-off in Mexico.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Meanwhile, Japan, who were the first nation to qualify for the finals in North America, made their own slice of history with a statement 1-0 win over England that showed they could go deep at the finals.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Iraq, whose preparations were disrupted by the war in the Middle East, sealed their first appearance at the finals in 40 years and will play in Group I against France, Senegal and Norway.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Goals from Ali Al-Hamadi and Aymen Hussein secured a famous win for Iraq, whose last appearance at the World Cup came at Mexico in 1986.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Aymen Hussein celebrates scoring Iraq\u2019s second and winning goal against Bolivia. Photo: Reuters\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ddde4825-a667-47c5-8ea7-d982e9eedd3c_bd2ebd8f.jpg\" title=\"Aymen Hussein celebrates scoring Iraq\u2019s second and winning goal against Bolivia. Photo: Reuters\"\/>Aymen Hussein celebrates scoring Iraq\u2019s second and winning goal against Bolivia. Photo: Reuters<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cWith everything going on in the Middle East at the moment, it made it harder for the players,\u201d said the Australian Arnold, who had initially sought to have the fixture postponed because of the disruption caused by the conflict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coach Graham Arnold has challenged his players to \u201cshock the world\u201d after Iraq became the 48th and final&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[14],"tags":[19582,1648,6511,3077,2711,19584,94,389,19581,2979,49,1737,271,2577,19583],"class_list":["post-47624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iraq","tag-ali-al-hamadi","tag-australia","tag-bolivia","tag-england","tag-graham-arnold","tag-hajime-moriyasu","tag-iraq","tag-japan","tag-kaoru-mitoma","tag-mexico","tag-middle-east","tag-north-america","tag-qatar","tag-world-cup","tag-zion-suzuki"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116332407229432234","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}