Graham Arnold

They've just sacked their coach, Kassas, but I'm pretty sure you won't take the job.

And I said to him, hang on, why?

And this was nine months, you know, as I said, six months stir crazy.

And I said, but hang on, why?

And he said, well, would you?

I said, absolutely.

Leave it with me.

I need to do my homework.

How long have we got to make that time to make that decision?

And we had about three days before...

The chairman, Adnan, called me and the board on a Zoom meeting, and it was about, you know, obviously if I wanted to coach Iraq, but they had two big qualifiers to play against South Korea in June and then Jordan.

Mathematically, they weren't through to the next phase in the third-place position.

So, you know, we had to – obviously they had to win one of those games to get through.

And –

I did my homework quickly on the players, seen their results.

They beat Japan at the Asian Cup 2-1, you know, and they've always had the quality and the talent, as I said right from the start.

So it was...

On a football side of it, it wasn't a tough decision to make.

Maybe on the lifestyle side of it and living in Baghdad and things like that, yes, the perception could have been of why I would take the job.

But I went in there first day and I flew over there and I thought I was just replacing the technical staff.