Australian coach Graham Arnold has steered Iraq's national team back onto the world stage for the first time in 40 years and their second ever appearance in the tournament.Such is his hero status that football officials tried to get him citizenship, but the story of how he got there is unexpected.Arnold is the first Australian coach to take teams to two World Cups, guiding the Socceroos to Qatar in 2022 before switching allegiances.Over the course of 28 months, with eight spent living in Baghdad, he's taken the squad through an arduous 21 qualifying games complicated by grounded flights out of the Middle East.On Wednesday, Arnold's Lions of Mesopotamia played their first World Cup match in 40 years, going head-to-head with a strong Norwegian side led by Manchester City's Erling Haaland It was the furthest the team had made it in the campaign since 2006, and Arnold was the first Australian-born manager to achieve this.Arnold ended a six-year stint as head Socceroos coach in September 2024, amid a poor start to the team's World Cup 2026 qualifying matches."I resigned for the good of the nation and the players