Khaberni - Tomorrow, Tuesday, the "BBVA" stadium in Monterrey, Mexico will witness the decisive match in the global playoff qualifying for the 2026 World Cup in America, Mexico, and Canada, where the national teams of Iraq and Bolivia will compete for one of the two tickets determined through the global playoff.
After finishing third in Group B in the third round of the Asian qualifiers for the World Cup, behind South Korea and Jordan, and ahead of Oman, Palestine, and Kuwait, the team qualified for the Asian playoff leading to the global playoff, and finished second in Group A behind Saudi Arabia who qualified directly for the World Cup, to meet the UAE team, which finished second in Group A, to decide the Asian representative to the global playoff.
The Iraqi national team successfully grabbed the qualifying spot after drawing 1-1 away in the first leg, then won at home in the second leg with a score of 2-1, to qualify for the global playoff.
The draw placed the Iraqi team in the final playoff match against the winner of Bolivia and Suriname in the semifinal.
With Australian coach Graham Arnold at the helm, the Iraqi team aims to qualify for the World Cup for the first time since the 1986 edition in Mexico, where the team was eliminated in the group stage after three matches against Mexico, Belgium, and Paraguay.
The Iraqi team is bolstered by the experience of its top scorer Ayman Hussein, a striker for Al-Karmah in the Iraqi league, alongside Ali Al-Hamadi from Luton Town in England, Zidane Iqbal, a midfielder from Utrecht in the Netherlands, and Youssef Ayman, a player from AEK Larnaca in Cyprus.
Bolivia's national team succeeded in defeating Suriname 2-1 after overturning a goal deficit to win and earn a ticket to the final and a chance to touch the dream of qualifying for the World Cup.
The Bolivian team has participated in the World Cup three times, first in the inaugural edition in 1930, where it was eliminated in the group stage, and followed the same pattern in its 1950 and 1994 participations.
Bolivia reached the global playoff stage after finishing seventh in the South American qualifiers, with 6 wins, 2 draws, and 10 losses in a total of 18 matches played, qualifying to participate in the global playoff.
Led by coach Oscar Villegas, the Bolivian team aims to surpass Iraq and qualify for the World Cup finals for the first time since 1994, also held in America, where the team had no chance in the robust South American qualifiers that include powerhouses like Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, among others, which greatly complicated their task.
However, the team performed well in the qualifiers and among its 6 victories, its win against Brazil with a clean goal stands out as one of the best matches the team played during the qualifiers.
The team is fortified by its young star Miguel Angel Trocieros, a player for Santos in Brazil, who scored the winning goal for the team in the match against Suriname after his teammate Moises Baniagua, a player for Wydad Casablanca, scored the equalizing goal.
The decisive match for the World Cup qualifying ticket will be the second in the history of the team's encounters, the first was a friendly match on November 20, 2018, which ended in a goalless draw.
The winner of the match between Iraq and Bolivia will play in Group Nine of the World Cup alongside the national teams of France, Senegal, and Norway.
