Coach: Iraq's Asian Cup campaign boosted by West Asian Games glory

Iraq coach Akram Salman has said that the country's victory in the 2005 West Asian Games, held in Qatar last month, was an ideal preparation for their Asian Cup qualifying campaign.

"We played in the West Asian Games as a preparation for the Asian Cup qualifiers since it was the only chance to group the players and we successfully won the tournament," Salman, who skippered Iraq at the 1986 World Cup finals in Mexico, told FootballAsia.com.

"There are 12 professionals who we can't group together and the players who play in Iraq also don't have good circumstances to train. Therefore, the West Asian Games will have a positive effect on our national team before the Asian Cup qualifiers," he added.

Iraq has been drawn alongside 2004 Asia Cup runner-up China, Singapore and Palestine.

Salman feels that the draw could have been worse for the Middle East nation, who has reached the quarterfinals of the last three Asian Cups.

"The draw was not bad and I think that the two teams who have the best chance to top the group are us and China," he said.

"However, in football there are no big names and we should respect all the teams.

"Palestine are a good team, they have good professionals and they held us in the FIFA World Cup qualifiers while Singapore are strong at home and the atmosphere in Southeast Asia could affect us when we play there."

Iraq will kick off their campaign against Singapore on February 22 and Salman is hoping that his side can play several friendlies before their away match with the reigning ASEAN champions.

"We have arranged a friendly match against Oman in February when we will be able to get all our professional players together and I am hoping that we can play more games for the first match in the qualifiers," said Salman.

Source: Xinhua