After weeks of uncertainty and logistical hurdles, Iraq's national football team is on its way to Mexico for the match that could change the nation's football history. The Lions of Mesopotamia will travel to Monterrey this week for a World Cup playoff on 31 March, where they face the winner of a semifinal between Bolivia and Suriname scheduled for 26 March.
The journey to Mexico represents far more than a routine international fixture. Half the first-choice squad are based in Iraq, and assembling only overseas players would undermine qualification hopes for a first World Cup since 1986. Yet travel proved extraordinarily difficult after conflict in the Middle East closed Iraqi airspace, shut foreign embassies, and forced visa processing to occur through roundabout channels.
Coach Graham Arnold faced the prospect of fielding a weakened team or missing the contest entirely. Two weeks ago, he appealed to FIFA to postpone the playoff, warning that "it wouldn't be our best team and we need our best team available for the country's biggest game in 40 years."
But the Federation persisted. Adnan Dirjal said FIFA has been "co-operative," with visas secured and a charter flight arranged; Europe-based players will join separately. "The team will travel to Mexico on a private plane this week," the federation chief said.
Arnold's personal situation illustrated the broader challenge. Arnold is stranded in the United Arab Emirates due to the conflict. A planned training camp in Houston was scrapped, and visa complications required Mexico to process players through embassies in Saudi Arabia and Qatar rather than directly from Baghdad.
If Iraq wins on 31 March, they will return to the World Cup for the first time in forty years. Iraq have only appeared once before at the World Cup Finals, in Mexico in 1986, when they lost all three games to Belgium, Paraguay and hosts Mexico. A defeat means elimination. The stakes could not be higher, and Iraq will finally have the chance to compete with their full squad assembled.