WORLD CUP ETC - PREVIEW: Intercontinental Playoff Finals

Paul Schmidt-Troschke and Jon Bonfiglio look ahead at Bolivia v Iraq and Jamaica v the DR Congo, in the final matches for World Cup qualification. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Hello and welcome to World Cup etc. with me, Paul Schmidroschka. Last week we have seen the semifinals of the Intercontinental Playoffs and European qualifiers, in which now the remaining 12 teams are fighting over the last six World Cup qualification spots today on the 31st of March 2026. And just as a quick refresher, Jamaica won against New Caledonia, therefore now has to square against the Democratic Republic of Congo in the Estadio Okron in Guadalajara. And Bolivia has the chance to qualify for the World Cup for the first time in 32 years if they win against Iraq after having defeated Suriname 2-1. In the European qualifiers, Bosnia and Herzegovina has the chance to qualify for the World Cup for the first time in the country's history. Unfortunately, they need to win against Italy, the four-time World Cup winner, and to call that a challenge is definitely an understatement. Further, Kosovo squares off against Turkey, Sweden plays against Poland and Denmark versus Czechia. But now over to the more unknown teams of Iraq and the Democratic Republic of Congo. I must say unknown to me, since the Iraqi national team, the Lions of Mesopotamia, have all the right to bear this name and are the football legends of the Middle East, being the most successful team in the Arab Cup with four titles. Iraq's first and only successful World Cup qualification was back in 1986, where they played in Mexico. They also played the host country but lost the game, but were able to score their so far only World Cup goal against Belgium. And stunningly, back in only 2007, when the country was in the middle of the US invasion, it achieved its biggest success yet by winning the Asian Football Federation AFC Cup. And in 2015, they managed to place fourth in the tournament. Continuing the list of successes, the Alliance of Mesopotamia won the Arabian Gulf Cup four times and the West Asian Football Federation Cup once. Founded only in 1948, the Iraqi Football Association is one of FIFA's younger members, only accepted in 1950. The team is coached by Graham Arnold, a former Australian national team coach, and the squad is made up of a significant number of national club players, but the majority plays abroad in several Asian clubs, but also European clubs like Utrecht in the Netherlands, Venezia in Italy, and Lutentown in England. The country currently occupies rank 59 in the FIFA World Ranking. The Democratic Republic of Congo national team, called Le Le Pan or the Leopards, is going up against Jamaica and also qualified only once for the World Cup in 1974. And due to its long colonial history, the country competed previously under various names Belgian Congo, Congo Kishana, and Zaire under them. Its football federation was found already back in 1919, but has only been accepted by FIFA in 1962, and only six years later in 1968, the country won its first of two Africa Cup of Nations titles, the AFCON Championship. The two titles in the African Nations Championship, now the African Nations League, makes them the second most successful African country in that competition, only outpaced by three times winner Morocco. Their French head coach, Sébastien Desabray, now has the historic chance to lead its team to the second World Cup spot ever. And his squad is full of talent with Newcastle's forward Joanne Vissa, team captain and defender, Chancel member playing for Lille in France, of course West Ham United's Aaron Juan Bissaka, or FSV Mainz's Silas Kaltompa Mvumpa playing in the German Bundesliga. Just to name the most recognizable and successful players. And I think I definitely need to apologize for butchering these names. I really gave my very best. Currently placing 56th in the FIFA World Ranking, the Leopards are definitely going into the final against Jamaica as the favorites. My co-host John Bonfilio is with me as well now. John, what are your thoughts on these two finals where no matter which countries win the two finals, either of them would mark a historic point in their country's football history?

SPEAKER_03 5:11

So here we are. Bolivia, let's start in Monterey and Bolivia from Comebol. They've really blown hot and cold throughout qualifying and a really vulnerable defensively. They had an absolutely abject first half of qualifiers, and then they swapped uh managers, and that combined with their relative stronghold playing at altitude in El Alto meant that they managed to make it through uh eventually in the last match, needing to be Brazil and managing it by a 1-0 uh victory in order to reach these intercontinental playoffs, but they're definitely very vulnerable defensively. It's difficult to see a context in which Iraq don't score against Bolivia for their part. I think the interesting point about Iraq is that um they've had an epic journey to get to Mexico, given the war in the Middle East or Southwest Asia, depending on how you want to call it refer to the area, uh, with so much airspace shut down in the area due to, of course, the the conflict. That's also meant, which is maybe, I mean, unsurprising because it's kind of been forced upon them to some extent, they've also not played any friendlies. So it's an open question as to which Iraq will arrive in Monterey. What level of preparedness they will have for the match against Bolivia? They are in the FIFA rankings 20, 25 places above Bolivia. So you would expect all things being equal for Iraq to um to sort of push through that final qualify and take the final place. Um, there's nothing really to suggest that the Bolivia is going to uh turn out and buck the trend of their recent form and um push demonstratively beyond um their their current performances. Um and then over in uh Guadalajara, of course, the Democratic Republic of Congo and uh Jamaica, DR Congo look strong. I mean, if you look at their qualifiers, the Leopards, they call the Leopards, lost just two of their 10 matches in group B of the African qualifiers. Uh they picked up seven wins in one draw and ended up on 22 points, actually, just uh two points behind group winners Senegal and uh achieved a playoff ticket in um uh through the through that avenue. Uh Jamaica, having seen them on Thursday against New Caledonia, really made heavy weather of that win. And something of a surprise that they only uh managed to defeat New Caledonia 1 1-0. You can also add to that the Congo crowd, given the fact that uh Mexico are fairly um have antipathy they enjoy directing towards Jamaica, as again we saw on Thursday, experience on Thursday, they will be fully supportive of the uh Democratic Republic of Congo crowd. So that should be so it would be something of a if not a home match, then they'll definitely be able to take some sucker from being supported by by locals there. Equally, uh the DR Congo are about 20 places um higher up the rankings than Jamaica, and uh Jamaica definitely didn't demonstrate anything either on Thursday or in previous qualifying to say that they've really got their heads screwed on straight and that they really want this to any sort of meaningful extent. Of course, who knows what will happen at the Estadio Akron in Guadalajara, but um the DL Congo should prove too strong for Jamaica there.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Yes, thank you so much, John. I definitely share your assessment on both of these finals. And I would like to add one very interesting fact which I forgot to mention, namely that not a single player in the Congolese team plays in the country itself. And this is mostly a result of large-scale migration to the European continent due to the unstable political situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which of course not only struggles with Islamic extremist terrorism, warlords, foreign militias, but under the world's hunger for the Congo's resources like what is there, cobalt, uh copper, cotan, lithium, all these rare earths which are um yeah at the center of our current economic system with electrification and uh yeah the green transition, etc. And also when we speak about the Congo, um a thing which needs to be mentioned is that the Congo is probably the country which suffered the most under colonial rule and suffered the most atrocities. In the Congo's case, uh it was a Belgian colony, and the Belgians uh killed an estimated eight to fifteen million people there, which is uh basically half the population at that time, and mutilated tens, if not hundreds of thousands more people. And of course, being a resource-rich country um is something which Iraq and the Democratic Republic of Congo have in common, which makes them targets for um yeah, Western companies and makes them targets for exploitation. So I sympathize with these countries a little bit more than with New Caledonia and Jamaica, even though of course they have uh very similar histories, um, also suffered under colonial rule. But yeah, these two countries are, I think, right now suffering much more. So that's it from us for today. Don't forget to follow us and rate the show on our platforms to stay updated. That goes a long way for us. Thank you so much for listening and goodbye.