3 top Iraq players too scared to return home

He said team captain Younis Mahmoud would not return, nor would Nashat Akram and Hawar Mulla Mohammed. Mahmoud, who scored the winning goal in Iraq’s 1-0 Asian Cup final win over Saudi Arabia, had said he feared for his life if he returned to Iraq to celebrate the stunning victory.

Qassim said there would be a welcome-home celebration in a Baghdad hotel in the heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the US Embassy and the Iraqi government headquarters.

However, even though Iraq won the Asian Cup last month, they were still seeded a lowly 12th in the 2010 World Cup qualifiers according to Asian Football Confederation (AFC) rankings released in Kuala Lumpur today.

Australia, despite their abject play in the Asian Cup, stayed on top as the number one seed. South Korea, the 2002 World Cup semi-finalists, came in second while Saudi Arabia was seeded third ahead of Japan. In the Asian Cup semi-finals, the Saudi squad beat Japan 3-2.

The top ten seeded teams were Australia, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Iran, Bahrain, Uzbekistan, Kuwait, North Korea and China. Seeded fifth, Iran will be among the five top-ranked teams who get a bye from the gruelling first round stages. The draw for round one will be held in Kuala Lumpur on Monday.

With the top five being given byes, teams ranked 6 to 43 are paired by draw and play one home-and-away knock-out round.