Baghdad The coach of our national football team, Dutchman Dick Advocaat, stressed the importance of beating Lebanon, tomorrow, Thursday, in the matches of the third round of Group A of the Asian qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Advocaat said, in the press conference for the Lebanon match this evening, Wednesday: “We have to realize that we are in a difficult group, and this does not mean that we will win every match. The start was good against South Korea, and with Iran it was a difficult match and we did not get the points.. we have to continue to work and get points, and the first chance we have is the Lebanon match, and we should not feel that we can defeat all the teams in this group, but we can make things difficult for them.”
He added, “We had only 3 days to prepare for the Lebanon match. When I took over the task of training Iraq, I watched the previous matches in order to choose the best players, and we started watching the Iraqi league matches. The group has so far not been decided, and many things cannot be changed within 3 days.” The important thing is for each player to give everything he has, as we did against South Korea, and the players over the past days have worked with great effort and high concentration.”
Advocaat continued: “In every game we go in to win, but in the end it is football. The same is true for tomorrow’s match. We will give everything we have to get the points of the match.”
On the issue of summoning players to the national team, he explained: “There is one person who chooses the list of players, and that is me, and we are trying to involve new players, and search for new young players, but this does not happen in a short time .. Most of the players continue to play for the last two years. With the national team.. I am the one who summons the players and I am the one who decides with my technical staff, and no one will interfere.”
Source: National Iraqi News Agency