Australian has had to contend with war, 50C heat and playoffs to steer country to a first World Cup in 40 years Twenty-eight months, 21 games, four rounds, a 117th-minute penalty and a playoff. A coach stuck in Dubai where he watches war start over the water, bombs shaking everything. A team trapped in Baghdad first and Jordan next, missiles flying around them. A scrambled 9,000-mile trip to Mexico where it all rests on one night, the very last country to make it. And, when they do finally land,

Iraq head coach Graham Arnold: ‘We’re capable of doing something that will shock the world’
Sid Lowe
