Kolkata Oct 15 (IANS) Iraq s football coach Qahtan Chitheer feels their qualification to the knockout stages of the FIFA Under-17 World Cup will unite people back home in a strife-torn country.
Iraq finished second in Group F behind England and will take on Mali in a round-of-16 clash in Goa.
"Nobody expected us to qualify. This was a tough group but we succeeded to be second with teams like Mexico and Chile " Chitheer said after losing 0-4 to England in their last round group F fixture on Saturday.
"This will surely unite our people. We will forget today s result and start afresh. We will study the team of Mali and do our best to go further " the coach said.
Iraq will be without their star striker Mohammed Dawood who has three goals from two matches because of a double booking on Saturday.
In his absence regular captain Saif Khalid is likely to start after missing their group stage matches because of a niggle.
"We played the first match without him (Saif) because he had a little injury and then tried to stick with the same side. Maybe we will need him next match " Chitheer said.
On risking Dawood by bringing him in the second-half despite a booking Chitheer said: "This is football. We will prepare our best. We will do the recovery and correct our mistakes of this match."
Hailing England s strong show the Iraq coach said they lost to a better team.
"England were very strong opponents and well organised. We tried to change our tactics and played with five in defence but after that we went back to 4-2-3-1.
"England were better prepared than us and deserved to win. Our players were exhausted with the high humidity a he concluded.
--IANS
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