After 9 rounds of the World Preliminary Round of 12 in Asia, the national football team only has 6 points, ranking fifth in the B group standings is also the second to last, the overall performance is far lower than expected, Oman got 11 points, more decent than the national football team, the last round of the national football team directly against Oman, the national football team needs to use victory to save face. In contrast, the former Asian champion Iraq in Group A is very magical, their scores and world rankings, as well as the overall results are similar to the national football team, but they miraculously counterattacked and ushered in the qualifying match point.
Iraq is the 2007 Asian Cup champion, currently ranked 74th in the world, the national football world 75th, the two teams in the latest year of the ranking alternately lead, the World Preliminary Tournament is also a difficult brother, Iraq's first 8 rounds of the World Preliminary Tournament in the Asian Zone Top 12 zero wins, only 5 points, the first eight rounds of the national football team is also 5 points. Dramatically, Iraq has 5 draws with 0 wins, thus dragging down the suspense of third place in Group A, which is far more valuable than the national football team's 5 points of 1 win, 2 draws and 5 losses.
With five draws, Group A's struggle for third place was very sticky, with the UAE ranking 3rd in the group with 9 points, Lebanon 4th with 6 points and Iraq 5th with 5 points. Iraq directly opened the miracle counterattack road in the 9th round, defeated the direct competitor uae 1-0, thus getting 8 points more than Lebanon's provisional group fourth, although only 2 points more than the national football team after the 9th round of Group B, but they have seen the hope of qualifying for the third place in the group, and there is only a 1-point gap with the UAE, which is temporarily ranked third, and the final round ushered in the match point of the group qualification of the top 12.
According to the schedule, Iraq's final round will have a very high probability of being selected from Group A and play-offs, which will be against Australia. The reason why it is optimistic that Iraq will qualify for the third place in the group, on the one hand, Iraq's final opponent Syria is the bottom team in the group, and Iraq has a great chance of winning; on the other hand, the UAE has encountered a strong South Korean team, and the South Korean team has no signs of water, they are currently 22 points, only 1 point ahead of Iran, and will continue to win to maintain the first place in the table, ending the world preliminary round trip with a perfect posture.
This miracle counterattack rekindled the hope of promotion, Iraq's heroes may be the manager, they change the coach such as changing knives, after the first eight rounds of zero wins, Petrović was fired by the Iraqi Football Association, what is unexpected is that after being fired, Petrović seems to think that he should not be fired, the team's zero win is more like a player's problem, bluntly said: "If Iraq is unable to qualify for the World Cup now, if it is entered, I jumped from the building." I definitely want Iraq to qualify, but it's impossible, because there is no foundation, just like building a house, there is a foundation. "Now it seems that the old Iraqi coach may be punched in the face, and the new coach Abdul Garni Shahad successfully led the team to win a key turnaround battle and successfully ushered in the third qualifying match point of the final group stage.