FOXBOROUGH, Mass., June 16 (Reuters) – Iraq coach \u2060Graham Arnold urged his players not to lose heart after their 4-1 defeat by \u2060Norway in their World Cup opener on Tuesday and reminded them they have \u200ctwo more chances to get a victory that could put them through to the knockout rounds.<\/p>\n
Norway’s Erling Haaland opened the scoring in the 29th minute and while Aymen Hussein briefly levelled for Iraq, Haaland put his side \u200bback in front before halftime. <\/p>\n
Leo Ostigard added a third in \u2060the 76th minute and Hussein’s late \u2060own goal completed the scoring.<\/p>\n
Iraq are playing at the World Cup for the first time \u2060in \u200c40 years and Arnold said he was encouraged by their performance.<\/p>\n
“We put good pressure on Norway,” he said. “But a couple of mistakes against players at this level \u2060will always punish you. So we need to learn lessons \u200bfrom our mistakes.”<\/p>\n
The Australian said \u200cNorway’s second goal, which came from a weak back pass to Iraq goalkeeper Jalal \u2060Hassan, was a \u200bturning point.<\/p>\n
“It really probably hurt the players mentally,” said Arnold. “I tried to pick them up and say it’s the past, and we’ve got to get over it.”<\/p>\n
Despite the defeat, Arnold said Iraq remain \u2060firmly in contention to reach the knockout stage.<\/p>\n
Norway lead \u200bGroup I on goal difference, with France also on three points following a 3-1 victory over Senegal. <\/p>\n
With the best third-placed sides also able to advance under the World Cup’s expanded 48-team format, \u2060Arnold said there was no reason to panic.<\/p>\n
“We’re in a group phase, there’s nine points available,” he said. “We’ve got to take all the positives out of today and get ourselves ready for the next game.<\/p>\n
“There is still the opportunity for third spot. Three points should be \u200benough to get you through.”<\/p>\n
Arnold also highlighted the contribution of Hussein, \u2060who endured an injury-hit season.<\/p>\n
“For him to get through 90 minutes with that energy that he \u200bhad, of course scoring the goal was fantastic,” he \u200csaid.<\/p>\n
With France next up, Arnold called on supporters \u200bto stay behind the team.<\/p>\n
“Be proud of the players,” he said. “Keep supporting the boys and stay happy.”<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Hatem Maher in Los Angelesl Editing by Peter Rutherford)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FOXBOROUGH, Mass., June 16 (Reuters) – Iraq coach \u2060Graham Arnold urged his players not to lose heart after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,13201,596,85,21418],"class_list":["post-741552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}