Iraq Faces Bolivia in Monterrey After War-Disrupted Journey, With Final 2026 World Cup Berth at Stake

MONTERREY, Mexico — On Tuesday night, under the steel shell of Estadio BBVA on the edge of the Sierra Madre, Iraq will stand one match from its first World Cup in 40 years.

Just reaching this northern Mexican city required slipping through a war.

With Iraqi airspace closed by a regional conflict centered on Iran and the United States, and embassies across Baghdad shuttered, the national team spent most of March unsure whether it would even be able to leave the country. Players traveled by road to Jordan, boarded a chartered jet that stopped in Portugal and arrived in Monterrey after an overnight trip that spanned three continents.

Now, in a one-off playoff against Bolivia, victory would send Iraq back to the World Cup for the first time since 1986 — also in Mexico — and into a 2026 tournament co-hosted by the United States, the country whose forces remain central to the war that closed Iraqi skies.

The game, scheduled for 9 p.m. local time Tuesday at Estadio BBVA, is the final of FIFA’s new six-team intercontinental playoff tournament. The winner will take the last open place at the 2026 World Cup, joining France, Norway and Senegal in Group I. The loser will go home.

A playoff twisted by war

The playoff was designed as a showcase for FIFA’s expanded 48-team World Cup and a dress rehearsal for host cities in Mexico. Instead, the Pathway 2 final has become an example of how a 21st century conflict can upend global sport.

Fighting erupted on Feb. 28 after large-scale U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iranian military targets, followed by Iranian missile and drone attacks across the region. In the days that followed, Iraq, Iran, Israel and several Gulf states shut or sharply restricted their airspace to civilian traffic. Aviation advisories warned of heightened risk from missiles, drones and militia rockets in and around the Baghdad Flight Information Region.

That left Iraq’s national team stranded.

Transport officials in Baghdad notified the Iraqi Football Association that commercial flights would not be operating. Domestic-based players could not get out. Coach Graham Arnold, the Australian hired in May 2025 to lead Iraq to the World Cup, was stuck hundreds of miles away.

Arnold had been in Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates with his wife when the war broke out. Iranian missiles struck nearby. Flights were disrupted. He eventually reached Dubai but remained unable to join his squad.

“It was very difficult,” Arnold told reporters in Monterrey this week, describing days of uncertainty in the Gulf as the conflict escalated. “But the most important thing for me was to keep the players focused on football and not let the outside noise affect them.”

From Baghdad, the noise was not easily ignored. With airspace closed and foreign missions operating on limited hours or shutting altogether, Iraqi players struggled to secure Mexican visas. Mexico has no embassy in Iraq, forcing the process through consular posts in neighboring countries that were themselves dealing with the fallout of war.

Arnold went public with his concerns in early March, appealing to FIFA to postpone the playoff.

“Please help us with this game because … we are struggling to get our players out of the country of Iraq,” he said at the time. He warned that relying solely on Iraq’s small group of overseas-based players for what he called “the country’s biggest game in 40 years” would be unfair to the squad and the public.

A 25-hour bus ride — then a chartered escape

Behind the scenes, Iraqi officials asked for the match to be pushed back. FIFA declined, citing the constraints of the international match calendar and the need to finalize the World Cup lineup well before the tournament’s June 2026 kickoff.

Instead, the governing body proposed an overland solution.

According to people familiar with the discussions, FIFA suggested that Iraq’s players could make a roughly 25-hour bus trip from Baghdad through northern Iraq into Turkey, and then fly onward to Mexico from Istanbul. Portions of the route, Iraqi officials said, had come under Iranian drone attack.

The plan was rejected.

Arnold informed the federation he would not allow the team to travel by road through an active conflict area. Iraqi officials, already wary of taking players out of the secure facilities they were using inside the country, formally turned down the option.

FIFA then turned to a more expensive alternative. Working with Iraq and regional governments, it organized a chartered plane and helped broker a route that would avoid closed or high-risk airspace. Mexico’s foreign ministry coordinated visa issuance through its consulates in countries including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, allowing players to complete their paperwork outside Iraq.

On March 21, Iraqi players and staff who had remained in the country traveled by road to Jordan and assembled in Amman. A FIFA-funded charter flight took off from Queen Alia International Airport, made a technical stop in Lisbon, and landed in Monterrey just after midnight local time between March 21 and 22.

Door to door, the trip still lasted roughly 25 hours. This time, it was largely in the air.

From March 23, the “Lions of Mesopotamia” trained in Monterrey, using a full week on the ground to adjust to the time zone and climate. Arnold said by the eve of the match his squad appeared settled.

“The boys are relaxed and ready to go,” he said Monday. “We’ve had good preparation here. All the logistical issues are behind us now.”

A 40-year wait and an old World Cup memory

For Iraq, the implications of Tuesday’s match stretch far beyond travel.

The country has appeared at the World Cup only once before, in 1986, when Mexico also hosted the tournament. Iraq lost all three group games and scored only once, but that side is still remembered as part of a “golden generation” that also delivered regional titles.

In the four decades since, Iraq has oscillated between conflict and fragile reconstruction. Yet its national team has remained a rare source of shared identity, notably when it won the 2007 Asian Cup at the height of sectarian violence.

The 2026 qualifying campaign brought Iraq back to the brink. The team advanced through Asia’s preliminary rounds and then won the Asian Football Confederation’s fifth-round playoff last November to secure the continent’s intercontinental slot.

Arnold, who led Australia to the round of 16 at the 2022 World Cup before stepping down, was hired by Iraq specifically to take them the final step. If they beat Bolivia, they will join a World Cup staged partly in the United States, whose 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation reshaped modern Iraq and whose military now plays a central role in the coalition fighting Iran.

The symbolism is not lost on Iraqi fans and media, even if players and officials have mostly chosen to speak about the sporting aspect.

Bolivia’s bid to return after 32 years

On the other side of the bracket stands Bolivia, a team with its own long absence.

Bolivia last played at a World Cup in 1994 in the United States. That appearance, like its previous ones in 1930 and 1950, ended in the group stage. In three tournaments, Bolivia has never won a World Cup match and has scored a single goal.

The expanded 48-team format opened a new path. Bolivia finished seventh in South America’s qualifying campaign, missing out on the six direct slots but earning a place in the intercontinental playoff. Under earlier systems, seventh would not have been enough.

In Monterrey last week, Bolivia beat Suriname 2-1 in a semifinal at Estadio BBVA, with teenager Moisés Paniagua and attacking midfielder Miguel Terceros scoring. Coach Óscar Villegas has leaned on a younger core as he tries to shake Bolivia’s image as a team dependent on high-altitude home advantage in La Paz.

A win Tuesday would send Bolivia back to a World Cup in North America after 32 years, again starting its campaign on the same continent where it last appeared.

Monterrey’s dress rehearsal

For Monterrey and Mexico, the playoff tournament is a test event.

Estadio BBVA, known locally as “El Gigante de Acero,” opened in 2015 and normally hosts C.F. Monterrey. For FIFA competitions, it is rebranded as Estadio Monterrey, with corporate names removed. The 53,000-seat arena will stage four matches during the 2026 World Cup.

Officials are using the playoffs, staged in Monterrey and Guadalajara from March 26 to 31, to fine-tune security procedures, transport plans and fan services ahead of an expected influx of millions of visitors next year. Ticket prices for Tuesday’s game are modest by World Cup standards, and local authorities expect a mix of Mexican fans, small groups of traveling Iraqis and Bolivians, and neutral spectators curious to see a high-stakes international match.

On the field, the contest appears finely balanced. Betting markets have priced the outcome as nearly even, with both teams close to the same odds to win in 90 minutes. Some statistical models give Iraq an edge based on recent results and squad depth, but neutral analysts agree the margins are thin.

Ninety minutes after a month of uncertainty

Outside the stadium, the wider war that shaped Iraq’s journey continues to scramble flight paths and disrupt civilian travel. Airlines are burning additional fuel to detour around closed airspace, and passengers across the Middle East face delays and cancellations.

Iraq’s squad, backed by FIFA funding and diplomatic support, was ultimately able to escape bottlenecks that have trapped thousands of ordinary travelers. The detour via Jordan and Portugal left a larger carbon footprint and higher costs than a direct route would have, but it delivered the team to the one place it needed to be.

On Tuesday night, all of that will compress into 90 minutes — or 120, if extra time is needed — and possibly a penalty shootout. At the final whistle, one nation will claim the 48th and last ticket to the 2026 World Cup. The other will be left to ask whether, after a month in which war reached into football’s carefully controlled schedules, simply getting to Monterrey was the greater achievement.