Iraq — 2026 World Cup Squad

Iraq's path out of Group I was never going to be kind. Erling Haaland and Norway sit above everyone, and the honest read for the Lions of Mesopotamia is that runner-up is the target, not the safety net. The case for getting there rests less on flair than on a back line that has quietly grown up in European football: Hussein Ali, holding the centre at Pogon Szczecin, and Merchas Doski, doing the same week to week at Plzen. Two defenders who no longer flinch at the level they will meet in the summer.

Going the other way, the threat is sharper than the ranking suggests. Ali Jasim has found a rhythm at Como, a left-sided forward who drifts inside to combine rather than hug the touchline, and Mohanad Ali remains the box presence Al-Shorta built a team around. Feeding them is Zidane Iqbal of FC Utrecht, calm on the ball when the press closes in, with Ipswich's Ali Al-Hamadi offering a blunter, run-in-behind alternative up top.

So expect them compact, patient, dangerous on the break. The deeper story, though, is who these players are: a generation made in Europe rather than the Gulf, Iqbal and Doski included, carrying a modernising Iraq onto its biggest stage.