World Cup

The “Lions of Mesopotamia” navigated a record-setting 21 qualifying games to get back to soccer’s biggest stage for the first time since 1986.

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Hassanin Mubarak is an Iraqi soccer journalist and author. He has covered the Iraqi team for over 20 years, including its qualifying campaign to reach the 2026 World Cup. Iraq will face Norway at “Boston Stadium” on June 16.

Aymen Hussein scored the goal that guided Iraq to their first World Cup in 40 years. He has a story to tell. When the striker was first starting out, he lost his father and then his brother to the violence that engulfed the country after the 2003 United States-led invasion.

He recalls his father leaving their home in the volatile region of Hawija on July 22, 2008, telling his wife and three sons he was going out into town. His mother asked his younger brother to phone his father to tell him the electrician had asked them to buy light bulbs for the new home they were planning to move into. But when he called, someone else picked up, telling him his father was in the morgue. He had been shot in the back and killed.

An officer in the Iraqi Army, Aymen’s father had been threatened by elements of Al-Qaeda where they lived. Six years later, his brother, who was also in the Iraqi Army, was abducted and presumed dead after threats from ISIS. At the time, Aymen was with the Iraqi youth team training in Turkey. The house his father had built was destroyed by ISIS when they took over the area, forcing his mother and younger brother to flee.

When Aymen scored the goal that qualified Iraq for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, his family were internally displaced and living in rented accommodations before he bought a home in Baghdad, where he was playing.

His dream was always to make it to the World Cup, but it wouldn’t come easy.

During the last World Cup qualifying campaign, after a run of poor results, Iraqi fans turned against the team, with the social media hashtag, “This team doesn’t represent me.” Aymen was one of the players targeted, with the forward even physically confronting fans after one qualifier.

Aymen was also a striker who wasn’t scoring goals, managing only two in his first 32 matches for Iraq. He became a figure of ridicule, cumbersome-looking and standing at 6-foot-2-inches, he was compared to a motionless plank of wood and even critiqued by a political satirist. His coach once rushed onto the pitch to stop him taking a penalty kick, such was the lack of confidence in him scoring.

But in the qualifying games for the 2026 World Cup, something just clicked into gear, and Aymen began finding the net, becoming the team’s main talisman and top scorer.

After scoring the winner against Bolivia in Monterrey, he declared, “It was a dream I’ve lived since childhood.”

He was rewarded handsomely. His gifts included three cars, a villa and an apartment, a 21-karat gold iPhone, and a plot of land. He is now among the top-five all-time Iraqi goalscorers and the highest-paid player in the Iraq Stars League.

The Lions of Mesopotamia

Aymen’s story is just one from a team, known as Asood Al-Rafidain or “The Lions of Mesopotamia,” whose members share similar stories of hardship and struggle to make it to the world’s biggest football tournament.

The name was first bestowed on the Iraqi team that won the 2007 Asian Cup, an achievement considered by some to be one of the greatest underdog stories in sporting history. A team representing a war-ravaged nation, reeling from the U.S. invasion four years earlier, witnessing the splintering of their country, surrounded by daily car bombings, kidnappings and sectarian violence, and somehow, in a midst of all this, they captured Asia’s top footballing trophy, uniting a nation.

This current generation has finally realized a nation’s dream of qualifying for the World Cup.

Midfielder Zaid Ismail dedicated qualifying to his late father, a deputy intelligence officer who was martyred in 2006, when the player was only four.

Ali Al-Hamadi, the first Iraqi international player to appear in the English Premier League, scored the first goal in Monterrey, and was almost in tears when he celebrated.

Born in Maysan, he left Iraq when he was only one. His father had been imprisoned after taking part in a peaceful demonstration against Saddam’s government, and was later released and fled to England. Ali’s mother was pregnant with Ali at the time, and after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, they travelled across the border to Jordan, before reuniting with Ali’s father in England, almost two years later, in Toxteth, Liverpool.

The journey

It took a record 21 qualifying games for Iraq to reach the World Cup. The journey was long, and at one point, a year ago, it looked impossible.

On course to qualify from their group, Iraq suffered a collapse in Amman, conceding two late goals to lose 2-1 to Palestine for the first time in its history. After the shock defeat, their Spanish coach Jesus Casas was sacked, with a crisis over who would take over next.

Out of the blue came Graham Arnold, who two years earlier had stepped down as Australia’s coach after a dismal start to their World Cup campaign.

Arnold had been Australia’s coach when Iraq beat them 3-1 on the way to lifting the 2007 Asian Cup, long admiring the Iraqi fighting mentality and spirit, and having qualified through the play-offs with his home nation before, saw enough from Iraq to think that they could qualify.

But it wouldn’t be easy.

Iraq had three ways to qualify, directly from their group, through the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) playoffs, or the Inter-Confederation playoff.

But after each game, their calculations would change and the route seemed to get longer.

They travelled to Jeddah for the AFC playoffs, but drew 0-0 with hosts Saudi Arabia who qualified ahead of them by the slightest of margins, pipping them on goal difference by a single goal.

Iraq were on the move again, playing the UAE, who like Iraq, had finished second to Qatar in their section of the AFC playoffs.

After a 1-1 stalemate in Abu Dhabi in the first game, the Emiratis took the lead in Basra but Iraq equalised.

UAE thought they had won it five minutes from the end. The vocal 62,444-strong crowd went silent, with collective sigh of relief when the goal was ruled out for offside.

But then came the late drama, in the last seconds of the allocated ten minutes of stoppage time, VAR (Video Assistant Referee) spotted a handball offence committed by a UAE player and a penalty was awarded to Iraq.

It was the last kick of the game, score, and Iraq were through to the final qualifier.

The penalty taker was Amir Al-Ammari, a representative of Iraq’s expatriate contingent, with his family’s life a reminder of Iraq’s turbulent history. His parents had met in Kuwait and left after the 1991 Gulf War to settle in Sweden, where Amir was born.

Before taking the most important kick of his life, he tried to gather himself, using breathing exercises he had recently learned to calm his nerves. He looked like the coolest person in the stadium.

Before the game, he had noticed the goalkeeper often dived early, and waited until the last moment to make his decision, putting it to his right to score. A whole nation erupted in celebration.

Iraq were only a game away from reaching the World Cup, a play-off in Monterrey, but again things didn’t go smoothly.

The final game

War broke out in the Middle East in February, with air space closed and flights grounded. Unable to gather his squad, Arnold, stuck in a hotel in the UAE, demanded FIFA postpone the play-off. But the clouds cleared, and after a 12-hour drive from Baghdad to Amman, and a 17-hour flight to Mexico, Iraq reached their destination, 10 days before their game.

Iraq scored early on, but their opponents, Bolivia, equalised, and then Aymen Hussein scored to secure the 48th and final spot at the World Cup.

Drawn with 2022 finalists France, Norway and African Cup of Nations’ winners Senegal, in what many deem to be the Group of Death, no one is expecting anything from Iraq at the World Cup.

And even after arriving in the United States, Hussein was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and questioned for seven hours before he was allowed to enter the country. It was one last hurdle that the 30-year-old had to clear to reach a World Cup.

After the victory in Monterrey, Iraq’s coach was bullish, declaring Iraq were going to the United States to shock the world. “When we’re there, we’ve got nothing to lose, so we’re going to play without fear, shock the world and enjoy it while we’re doing it.”