by
Graham Arnold wants to make something clear. This World Cup will not be his coaching swansong if he has his way.
In a wide-ranging interview that you can watch in full on the Fox Sports Australia YouTube page, Arnold delves into what’s motivating his future plans, the shock of suddenly finding himself in a war zone, what it was like to pull on Iraq colours for the first time, how he plans to guide his side out of the group of death in North America in June and his reaction if a knockout meeting with the Socceroos eventuates.
Get all the latest football news, highlights and analysis delivered straight to your inbox with Fox Sports Sportmail. Sign up now!!!
Fox Sports Australia sat down with Arnold following his return to Sydney after Iraq broke a 40-year drought by qualifying for the World Cup on the back of a 2-1 playoff victory over Bolivia in Mexico.
In the process he grabs a slice of Australian football history. He’s now the first Australian to take two different nations to a men’s World Cup and if he has his way it won’t be the last time he graces football’s biggest stage.
“At the moment it’s sort of sinking in but I want to do number three, I want to do number four, I’ve got to chase Guus Hiddink’s record,” Arnold says.
“I told him.”
Hiddink, who took the Socceroos to the 2006 World Cup in Germany, and Arnold still speak regularly.
Arnold describes the veteran Dutchman, who coached at three World Cup finals – all with different countries – as a “father figure” and he learned his coaching skills at the feet of Hiddink as part of his coaching staff 20 years ago.
The two share similarities.
Hiddink coached the Netherlands at France 1998 before moving on to take charge of South Korea in 2002 and then Australia in 2006.
Arnold, who has championed Australian football all his life as a player and then coach, still remembers the first time he put on the colours of Iraq.
“First day in Basra before we played South Korea and I put a different nation on my heart,” Arnold says of getting dressed for the match.
“It was different, it was different.
“I looked in the mirror, and it was a bit like oh.”
He’s grown to love that look. It’s another chapter in what has been a storied career, but one that he never thought would involve being hoisted onto the shoulders of team members at full-time, waving the Iraqi flag over his head, after a game in Mexico.
“No, never thought that ever,” he says with a broad grin.
“But that’s how much they appreciate me.”
Watch the biggest Aussie sports & the best from overseas LIVE on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.
Arnold has become a hero to more than 46 million people in Iraq and many more around the world who used to call the country home but have moved elsewhere. A large and vocal crowd of supporters who greeted him on arrival at Sydney Airport is testament to that.
He chose to spend eight of the last 10 months in Baghdad soaking up the culture. The 62-year-old quickly discovered that the country revolves around football.
“If I walk out of the compound and they recognise me, cars will stop on the road, people will jump out of their cars and it’s just for photos,” he explains.
Similar to the Socceroos’ 32-year wait to make a World Cup again prior to 2006, Arnold says he felt the pain of the people of his adopted nation in that regard. Four decades for a country fanatical about football is a lifetime.
At one stage, the side’s ability to even make it to Mexico for the playoff looked in doubt after conflict between Israel, the US and Iran spread to the wider Middle East.
Arnold was on a scouting trip in Dubai to watch two of his players at the time when he heard a “massive bomb” explode.
The joint US/Israeli military campaign in Iran had just started and Arnold was in no doubt about what he’d just found himself in the middle of.
“It was so loud,” he says.
“When I was going back to the airport my driver said the airport has been shut down.
“I was stuck in Dubai for 10 days with some bombs going off around the hotel, not far, about a kilometre away, but very, very loud and shaky.”
With Middle East airspace closed and players stranded, Arnold tried unsuccessfully to get the playoff match postponed.
FIFA eventually helped with a charter flight from Jordan, but it was still a marathon journey for players and staff to Monterrey.
It almost made playing the game the easy part.
“They’ve been through wars,” Arnold says of his team and staff.
“They’ve been through those types of moments and times.
“They’ve experienced the bad side of life.”
Now, the size of the task in-front of Iraq is huge. Competing in their first World Cup since 1986, the playoff win sees them earn a spot in Group I. That just happens to be the same group that contains Kylian Mbappe’s France, Erling Haaland’s Norway and Sadio Mane’s Senegal.
Every World Cup must have a group of death. It’s tradition. Group I just happens to be that. Arnold is already reframing that term though.
“I’ll call it the group of excitement,” he says.
Depending on results there is also the chance that if Iraq get out of the group they can run into the Socceroos in the round of 32 or 16.
“I really wish you didn’t tell me that,” Arnold says.
“Let me worry about Mbappe first, and Haaland and Senegal and Mane.
“Nah, we don’t want that.”
