Exclusive: Inside story of Iraq fairytale, including coffee with Viduka in Zagreb

It’s fair to say Rob Stanton’s life changed pretty dramatically one year ago.

In early April 2025, Stanton was informed he was going to be relieved of his duties as Newcastle Jets head coach at the end of the season, which was just a few weeks away.

The silver lining was that after living out of a suitcase for most of the previous two years, he could finally look forward to some time at home with his family.

Before he even had time to unpack, however, he received a message about an opportunity overseas and, as Stanton puts it, “one thing led to another and within about three to four days I was in Baghdad.”

Going from head coach of an A-League club to assistant coach of a Middle Eastern nation in the grips of a chaotic World Cup qualification campaign would be a shock to the system at the best of times.

But when Stanton arrived in Iraq, the enormity of the challenge facing him, Arnold and the band of Aussie assistants brought in at short notice became abundantly clear. All the previous backroom staff - literally all of them - had been moved on. Everything had to begin again from scratch.

Fast forward 12 months and Stanton is back in Australia, unsure when - or if - he’ll return to Iraq, but safe in the knowledge that he will accompany the team on the journey of a lifetime when they play against football powerhouses France, Norway and Senegal at the World Cup in the US.

So how did they get there? It involves one of the wildest journeys I’ve ever read about in football, which Stanton nearly missed as he tried to figure out the best course of action while war began to unfold across the Middle East.

I strongly recommend reading this fantastic interview, conducted by Sacha Pisani, to get the full inside story of Iraq’s World Cup qualification fairytale as told by Stanton.

At least Arnold, Stanton and co. won’t have to deal with the good people at Football360 trying to predict their every move over the next few months (although perhaps we should have a crack at predicting Iraq’s squad - I’ll talk to David about it!).

That honour instead will be bestowed upon Tony Popovic, the current Socceroos head coach who has done a pretty good job at keeping fans and media alike guessing about who will be on the plane to the USA in less than two months’ time.

Just about every Socceroos squad since Popovic began his tenure has contained one or two surprises, from the likes of Nishan Vellupilay and Jason Geria early on, to Deni Juric and Awer Mabil more recently.

But will Popa stun us all by picking a player for the World Cup who hasn’t featured over the last few international windows? And could that player be Harry Souttar, who actually hasn’t played any senior games of football since December 2024?

That’s one of the key questions as my fearless co-founder David Weiner put his neck on the line by attempting to predict the 26 men who will be named in Australia’s World Cup squad.

Check out the list in the image below, but make sure you read the article to see the reasoning David used to land on that group of players.

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Central Coast Mariners have confirmed that Warren Moon won’t be their head coach beyond this season.

Moon was appointed on an interim basis just a few days before the current season started, following the shock departure of Mark Jackson, but ended up sticking around for the entire campaign.

Having seen the side through a highly tumultuous period in which the running of the club has been taken over by the A-League itself, Moon is now returning home to Brisbane for family reasons.

The timing is certainly interesting, with just three games of the regular season remaining and the Mariners very much still in finals contention.

Perhaps appropriately, their next match is against Brisbane Roar tonight, which will see Moon come face-to-face with Roar coach Michael Valkanis after the pair’s infamous back-and-forth following their New Year’s Eve clash earlier in the season.

Standing between the sticks for Central Coast tonight will be Andrew Redmayne, the veteran goalkeeper who will be playing his 300th A-League game.

It’s a significant milestone for anyone, but particularly for Redmayne after being told last year, while he was still at Sydney FC, that it was in his best interests to retire.

He rejected that advice, returned to the Mariners - the club he made his A-League debut for - and has gone on to have a stellar season as the senior figure of a youthful squad. It’s so youthful, in fact, that Redmayne struggles to keep up with the lingo of his younger teammates.

“There’s times where I think my head will give out before my body because the chat in the change room is starkly different to that when I first came in,” Redmayne said in an interview with AAP.

“It’s an interesting dynamic but I think I feed off that youthful energy sometimes. I have to ask, ‘what does that mean?’ with the little catchphrases they say.”

I know how he feels.

If you want to see the future of Australian football, you’re in luck.

The CommBank Emerging Matildas Championships begin today, with the equivalent Socceroos version on a little later this month.

It’s no exaggeration to say these two events go a long way towards shaping the future not just of the national teams, but of football in Australia as a whole.

Find out more about these crucial tournaments - which these days are about so much more than just the games played - in this article, and keep an eye on our website and social media pages over the weekend as we try spot the next Aussie football superstar.

Also hoping to do that will be Michael Cooper, the coach of the Junior Matildas.

He spoke football360.com.au this week and provided a fascinating insight into how much of an influence Matildas boss Joe Montemurro has over the the youth program in Australia.

“We meet as staff every week and we have depth chart meetings every few weeks,” Cooper said.

He went on to discuss the need to make that depth chart even deeper, something he is completely aligned on with Montemurro, who spoke recently about the need for more competitive football for teenage players.

You can read more on this topic via the link below.

While Morgan spends the next week trying to identify the Matildas of tomorrow, Montemurro will be more focused on the Matildas of today as they gear up to play a couple of friendlies as part of the FIFA Series in Kenya.

First up is a game on Saturday against Malawi, ranked 153rd in the world. You’d expect Sam Kerr to maybe not be so keen on such a game but she seemed right up for it when she spoke after landing in Nairobi a couple of days ago, fresh from scoring for Chelsea last weekend.

“On the pitch, I think it offers a different experience; most of us haven’t played many African teams, so there’s a lot of experience gained in that,” Kerr said. “And then off the pitch, I think it’s just nice to come and see different cultures, different walks of life. Hopefully, we get to see the beautiful safaris and all of that that Africa has to offer.”

Kerr and co. are in action at 9pm AEST on Saturday night - check out a full list of interesting fixtures this weekend down the bottom of this email.

Either someone at AC Milan really likes quokkas, or there’s something else going on.

The Rossoneri are coming to Perth for the third year in a row, and this time they’re bringing some frenemies with them.

Yesterday it was confirmed that AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus and Palermo will all play games at Perth’s Optus Stadium in August, as part of their preparations for the 2026-27 Serie A season.

While a fully-fledged league game in Perth involving AC Milan was ultimately abandoned earlier this year, fans in WA will still get their Italian football fix after all, via a Milano Derby between AC and Inter, as well as a Derby d’Italia between Inter and Juventus.

With Tottenham and Chelsea coming to Sydney around the same time, this winter is going to give Aussie fans a pretty delicious taste of world-class football up close.

Read more about the Italian job here.