(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Assistant coach Hayder Najem hailed his team's 2-1 come-from-behind win over Qatar as Iraq took third place at the AFC U23 Championship to qualify for the finals of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Qatar had taken the lead in the 27th minute through Ahmed Alaa but Mohanad Abdulraheem's goal four minutes from time took the game into extra-time before Aymen Hussein headed in the winner in the 109th minute to seal Iraq's progress to Brazil.
"This victory really is the fruit of the great work of the Olympic committee in Iraq since we started our preparation," he said. "Also, after the defeat against the Japanese team, we weren't able get to the final but we still realised our target by beating Qatar.
"We faced one of the best teams in the tournament, the hosts playing on their field with their fans, but we progressed step-by-step and we were
behind 1-0, but with the
experience of our players we were able to pull level and then go on and win."
Iraq coach Abdulghani Shahad had rotated his team throughout the tournament, and made another two changes going into the playoff, with Humam Tareq and Safaa Jabbar coming in for Mahdi Kamil and Amjed Hussein.
And despite going behind to Felix Sanchez's side, Najim and the rest of the coaching staff remained confident their players would be fresh enough to find a way back into the game.
"It was a difficult game for both teams," said Najem. "Qatar was under pressure as the host team. We were better in the first half, despite the bad mistakes we committed, and in the second half we did things the right way and we knew the Qatar team didn't have substitutes like we did. We knew most of their players would be tired in the second half because they have played full time in all the matches, so we pushed to take the game into extra time and we got it. The Qatar team have been playing all five of their previous games with the same formation and the same team. We knew their players would be tired.
"But you should know also that we missed many important opportunities. We knew it would be a tough game, we tried to take the players away from the pressure after the Japan game."
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