2024-01-04T08:29:13+00:00
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/ The statement of the Spanish coach of the Iraqi national football team, Jesus Casas, regarding the team winning the Asian Cup again and that he cannot promise the Iraqis that, sparked a wave of mixed reactions within the sports community. While specialized coaches criticized the timing of his statement, especially with the approaching start of the tournament, others were not surprised by that due to the difficulty of the competition between the participating teams.
Casas had said in a long interview with a Gulf newspaper: “I am not a fool to promise the Iraqis the Asian Cup.” In this regard, Agency surveyed the opinions of a number of specialized coaches about this frank statement.
“Provocative and crazy statement”
“I respect Kasas as a coach, but his statement was provocative and very strange, especially at this critical time, especially since he left as a professional coach in front of millions of Iraqis who are waiting for joy from their national team, and with all the support that was provided to him by the federation during his term, which no previous federation provided to any other local or foreign coach during the period prior to leading our national teams,” coach Jabbar Hamid told Agency.
Hamid said that “Kassas’s latest statement confirms that he does not have confidence in his choices, and that he has not settled on the lineup yet,” adding that “Kassas destroyed the players’ morale with his strange statement, and he should have been wiser in issuing his statements,” according to his expression.
Hamid described Kasas’ statement as “a crazy statement that lacked the simplest elements of optimism, especially since the entire Iraqi public is waiting for joy from their national team in the biggest continental championship, and is also waiting for optimistic statements from the national team’s coach even if he does not promise them a positive result in the championship,” adding that “there are better methods and ways than what Kasas mentioned in his statement, through which he frustrated the morale of the players and the Iraqi public.”
Hamid cited the achievement of the 2007 Asian Cup when Iraq won the title, explaining, “Football is the mother of surprises and our national team won the title at that time in the most difficult circumstances that the country was going through. It did not play any matches in its stadiums, suffered a lot from moving between countries, did not have professional players, did not play friendly matches at high levels, and did not camp in developed countries as all of that is available to our current national team.”
“Why didn’t he say it earlier?”
In turn, the star of the 2007 Asian Cup, Qusay Munir, told Agency, “When any team enters a tournament, it enters as a competitor, and within its coach and players is determination and resolve to achieve a good result. However, if it does not achieve that, then everyone has worked and strived, but they did not succeed in achieving what they worked and strived for.”
He added that Casas’ statement was completely inappropriate, and that his provocative statement raises questions about why he did not make it earlier, and why he chose this particular time when he is aware of all the details related to the players.
Munir pointed out that “every coach has an indicator after the work he does in preparing, preparing and selecting the players, and Casas’ statement confirms that his indicator has become clear that he will not achieve a positive result in the upcoming Asian Championship after his failure to prepare the team before the start of the championship to set justifications in advance.”
“What Casas said was very clever.”
While coach Ali Abdul-Jabbar said, “Kassas’ statement is not strange, and I consider the Asian Cup a mini-World Cup in which advanced teams participate, which have become influential and dominant in the Asian continent.”
He considered that “Casas’ last statement was very smart and through it he tried to keep the players away from pressures, considering that the players are thinking about facing the strongest Asian team, which is the Japanese national team.”
Abdul Jabbar continued, saying, “In my opinion, Casas demands performance and results from the players, and the Iraqi team players in this case are required to perform before the results.”
He concluded by saying, “I think that the most important thing for Casas is to think about qualifying for the World Cup, and at the same time to perform honorably in the Asian Championship.”