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On Sunday morning, Tony Segar joined hundreds of friends from the Iraqi community to welcome their newest hero home to Sydney airport.
Segar, who helps organise the Iraqi supporters group in Australia, was just three years old when Iraq last qualified for the World Cup, in Mexico 1986. He felt he had to be there in person to thank Graham Arnold for helping guide his country back to football’s biggest stage, 40 years on.
“It was just a simple gesture from the [Iraqi] community to say thank you to Graham Arnold for what he has helped us achieve,” Segar said. “It’s just our second qualification, and we’ve been waiting 40 years. He’ll always be a hero for us.
“At the airport, it was all ethnicities: Orthodox, Catholic, Muslim, all religions, all backgrounds of Iraq ... everybody united under one name.”
Segar says Arnold’s brand of coaching helped unlock something special in the Iraqi team, which overcame the odds to beat Bolivia 2-1 in a qualifying play-off in Mexico last Wednesday.
“I would say the Australian winning mentality from Graham, combined with the Iraqi fighting spirit, is giving us a magical mix that’s helped the boys out on the pitch to give 110 per cent and get us over the line,” he said.
Segar found out what time Arnold’s flight was arriving home to Sydney thanks to the Iraqi Football Association and immediately hit the phone to arrange a welcoming committee, with numbers rapidly swelling into the hundreds.
“You have different [Iraqi] communities here and what happens is you spread the words on social media,” Segar said. “Then all the communities and all the associations here in Australia were sending each other texts and notifications telling everyone that Graham Arnold is arriving back.
“The news really spread, so people randomly showed up to the airport. We all actually looked pretty organised in the end because you’re secluded in one spot [at the arrivals hall].”
Speaking to SBS News, Arnold was visibly stunned at the turnout to greet him at the airport.
“[It’s] crazy, bizarre,” Arnold said. “I didn’t expect this [welcome] here in Australia. Obviously in Iraq, but it’s incredible.
“I want to apologise to everyone in Iraq that I couldn’t go back there to celebrate, because obviously the airspace shut down and everything’s shut. But seeing this here is amazing.”
Former Socceroo Craig Foster said the celebrations at Sydney airport highlighted the power of football to unify diverse communities in Australia.
“ Just think that an Australian coach would be returning here to Sydney and having Iraqi Australians celebrating him – it’s pretty incredible,” Foster said.
“It’s a credit, of course, to what he achieved, but also to the popularity of the game right across all the diasporas in Australia ... this is what’s beautiful about the game, it brings everyone together.
“When else would you ever have a group of Iraqi Australians, just Aussies, celebrating an Australian coach who just made the World Cup with Iraq? It’s just beautiful scenes. It really speaks to the nature of Australia.”
Foster believes the achievements of the former Socceroos coach, who only took over Iraq in May, will go down in history.
“When we talk about Australians coaching in the international environment, non-club scene, I think this is comfortably the best performance ever,” Foster said.
“This is an extraordinary achievement – a new group of players, a limited amount of time, language barriers, the need for an interpreter, no time to understand the players and their qualities.
“Yet they’ve been able to overcome all of those things and make the right decisions about personnel, preparation and tactics to get them across the line for the first time in 40 years. It’s an absolute coaching triumph.”
