Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Riyadh: FIFA World Cup 2014 Asian hopeful Iraq started Arab Nations Cup with a winning note beating fellow World Cup hopeful Lebanon 1-0 in their opening match on Sunday.
A total of 11 Arabic nations including four from Africa are participating in the championship where Iraq and Lebanon are the two countries who are involved in the final round of the FIFA World Cup Asian qualifications.
Other Asian Arabic countries featuring in the World Cup qualifiers’ final round who opted not to take part in the USD 1 million cash prize tournament are Qatar, Oman and Jordan.
Mustafa Kareem Abdullah found the net with one minutes remaining which separated the two sides in the match played at Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Stadium.
Both Lebanon and Iraq are in action on Wednesday with Lebanon taking on Sudan and Iraq facing tournament’s highest ranking side Egypt.
Lebanon is on the rock-bottom of Group A of the World Cup qualifiers final round after managing a single draw against Uzbekistan in the three matches played earlier this month. They will entertain Iran when the qualification campaign resume on September.
In contrast, Iraq are unbeaten in Group B and are at the second position behind leaders Japan with two points after drawing their matches against West Asian rivals Jordan and Oman. They will travel to Japan to take on the leaders in September qualifiers.