World Cup qualifier review: Iraq v. Socceroos at Doha

Wednesday morning (AEST), the Socceroos played their fourth match (of eight) in the second group stage of the Asian qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup. Due to Iraq being, you know, war-torn, the Iraqis played their ‘home’ match in front of a far-from-capacity crowd at the Grand Hamad Stadium in Doha. Going into the match, the two teams (as well as Oman) were tied for third place in the five-team group, with Japan and Jordan ahead of them; a finish in the top two is needed to go straight to Brazil, with the third-placed team needing to win two playoffs to get there.

Iraq have qualified for only one World Cup – Mexico ’86, where they lost all three matches (and were tortured by Uday and Qusay Hussain upon returning home). They have enjoyed some success in recent years, including a famous victory at the 2007 Asian Cup, and are coached by Brazilian legend Zico. However, unlike certain Gulf countries given to dishing out citizenship to fresh-off-the-plane Brazilian imports, Iraq’s footballing talent is home-grown; the Kurds, like the Azeris across the border in Iran, provide more than their proportionate share of the national team. Its clubs, heavily concentrated in a Baghdad, have never featured in the knockout phase of the Asian Champions League, and its overseas-based players tend to play in Europe or in the Gulf.

The match took a while to heat up; Iraq could marshal four defenders to the six-yard box to stop any Australian attack, but their sloppy finishing, as well as Mark Schwarzer’s capable hands, made it hard for them to create chances of their own. The Socceroos were forced to try from outside the area, and neither side could seem to convert set pieces into anything approaching a goal. An evenly-fought half (Australia led in the possession stakes 52% to 48%) ended goalless, with both teams earning a yellow card from the steady but restrained argy-bargy which the Korean referee was generally unable to keep a lid on.

The Iraqis came out of the blocks hard in the second half, conceding two free kicks in the first thirty seconds. A series of Australian barrages of the Iraqi goal was halted in the fifty-seventh minute, when Lucas Neill was cautioned for holding a counter-attacking Iraqi forward who would otherwise have had only Schwarzer to beat. Nevertheless, the Lions of Mesopotamia looked rattled, and the few minutes either side of the hour mark were punctuated by two Iraqi substitutions and a nasty foul on Robbie Kruse. From there, the game began to proceed at a staccato rhythm, as Iraq resorted to cynical fouls, usually targeted at Kruse, and always rewarded by the referee’s reluctance to pull out the yellow card. When the ‘Iraqi Kaka’ Alaa Abdul-Zahra scored from a length-of-the-field counter-attack in the seventy-second minute, and Kruse had to be substituted in the seventy-ninth after being hacked to pieces, it looked as if the Iraqis had mastered the tempo of the match and would emerge victorious.

A Socceroos eleven refreshed from two substitutions (Archie Thompson on for Alex Brosque and Tommy Oar on for Robbie Kruse) hit its stride in the final ten minutes. Seemingly out of nowhere, Tim Cahill headed a corner past a statue-like Iraqi goalkeeper and toward the far post in the eightieth minute. Four minutes later, from exactly the same position (ten metres from goal, a 50-55 degree angle to the goalkeeper’s left side), Archie Thompson headed a Tommy Oar cross into the same place. After trying everything else, they had finally found a way through the Iraqi defence – through the air, splitting the Iraqi keeper from his back four. From there, the Aussies cruised to victory, with their only hiccup being a caution for Tim Cahill one minute from the end of regulation time as part of the referee’s belated attempt to assert control.

The Socceroos looked lost at times, unable to capitalise on their technical superiority over the unpolished Mesopotamians. Corners and free kicks went unconverted, and on a few occasions the Iraqi catenaccio strategy resulted in Abdul-Zahra facing Schwarzer one-on-one; Australia were lucky that only one such situation ended in an Iraqi goal. On the other hand, the match reassured the nation that the ‘Roos can indeed win competitive matches, and swept away the irritation of last month’s 2-1 loss in Amman. Iraq relies heavily on its back four and on Abdul-Zahra, and its players are poor finishers and messy tacklers. It seems evident that a Socceroos team firing on all cylinders will have no trouble against Oman or Jordan, and your humble correspondent went to bed confident that the boys in verde y oro will wrap up qualification for Brazil in a clinical fashion next winter.

The Socceroos benefit from Oman’s 2-1 win over Jordan in Muscat, which halted a potential Hashemite charge up the Group B table. After four matches each, Japan lead the group with 10 points, Australia and Oman 5 apiece, Jordan 4, and Iraq 2. Australia has a bye in the next matchday, in November, so the next qualifier will be against Oman in Sydney next March, followed by a three-game stand in June – Japan at Saitama, Jordan at Melbourne, and Iraq at Sydney.

Iraq 1 (Alaa Abdul-Zahra 72’) – Australia 2 (Tim Cahill 80’; Archie Thompson 84’)

Cautions: Carl Valeri (AU) 19’; Salam Shaker (IQ) 42’; Khaldoon Ibrahim Mohammad (IQ) 61’; Tim Cahill (AU) 89’.