2026 World Cup: Coach Arnold feels Iraq's passion to pass final playoff test after 40-year wait

ZURICH (AP) — Iraq is one game away from soccer’s 2026 World Cup in North America and its veteran coach senses a little pressure and a huge achievement ahead.

For Iraq fans, a 40-year wait through their nation’s troubled modern history to return to the World Cup can end in the last of an epic 21-game qualifying campaign. That is more games than any other team played getting to the tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Iraq just has to win an elimination playoff against Bolivia or Suriname scheduled in March. Bolivia and Suriname meet days earlier — also in Monterrey or Guadalajara.

“If ever a country is desperate to qualify, this is it,” Iraq coach Graham Arnold told The Associated Press in Zurich after FIFA made the playoff pairings draw Thursday.

“I’ve never seen anything like it the other night,” he said, about Iraq scoring a penalty kick in the 17th minute of stoppage time to eliminate the United Arab Emirates in an Asian playoff.

There were 62,000 to see Iraq win 2-1, and 3-2 on aggregate score, inside the stadium in Basra — a city often known for military conflict and turmoil since Iraq last played at the World Cup in 1986.

A video that circulated online showed Arnold behind the team dugout refusing to watch as Amir Al-Ammari prepared to score the decisive spot-kick.

Still, Arnold has seen it and done it before in World Cup qualification.

He guided his native Australia through a win-or-go-home game against Peru in Doha to reach the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. His bold coaching helped Australia win the penalty shootout by sending on substitute goalkeeper Andrew Redmayne, who made the decisive save.

“The funny thing is, I didn’t feel this much pressure,” Arnold said of coaching Australia in that playoff, compared to the tension “that I felt the other night.”

“Australia’s my country, and I love Australia so much, but I’ve been given a task that can change a country forever,” he said. “And I’m really enjoying the task.”

Arnold was appointed only in May, deep into a qualifying campaign that started in November 2023, for a job in a nation where soccer is the top sport.

“The people are beautiful people and they’re very passionate about anything that they do,” he said, describing the fans as “sensational.”

“The whole thing of Iraq is a misperception. You know, they had to go through a war, they’re still recovering from that war.”

Baghdad was subjected to “shock and awe” bombing by the United States military in 2003 to begin toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein. For much of the past two decades, FIFA judged Iraq not safe enough to host games in international competitions like the World Cup.

“The roads are busy, everything’s busy. But I’ve been there for five and a half months out of six, and I find it normal,” said Arnold, adding he is unbothered by the heat and dust storms.

Some in Arnold’s squad play for clubs in Europe, including Al-Ammari in Poland, former Manchester United prospect Zidane Iqbal in the Netherlands and German-born Merchas Doski in the Czech Republic. Most are still in Iraq.

“They have carried a lot of pressure and there’s a lot of expectations,” he acknowledged about the mental challenges. “I’ve banned them from social media for the last two camps, from the day they got in, to the day we left. And we haven’t lost a game.”

One more game remains in Mexico, the only country where Iraq played at a World Cup. In 1986, Iraq lost three tight games including to the host nation team.

Iraq wants to return.

“There’s 45 million that live in Iraq and there’s probably about another 10 million live somewhere else, because of the war,” Arnold said. “So there’s a lot of emotion around.”

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Iraq team players pose for a photo before the 2026 World Cup play off second leg match between Iraq and UAE in Basra, Iraq, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

The UEFA Playoff tree is shown on a screen next to Manolo Zubiria, Chief Tournament Officer for the FIFA World Cup 2026, left, and host Melanie Winiger during the FIFA World Cup 2026 playoff draw in Zurich, Switzerland, Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. (Claudio Thoma/Keystone via AP)

Iraqi's Mohanad Ali, left, celebrates with teammates after scoring his side's first goal during the 2026 World Cup play off second leg match between Iraq and UAE, in Basra, Iraq, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

Iraqi's head coach Graham Arnold celebrates his team's win during the 2026 World Cup play off second leg soccer match between UAE and Iraq, in Basra, Iraq, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

Advocacy groups and experts condemned YouTube for serving up low-quality artificial intelligence-generated videos to its most vulnerable audience: children.

In a letter to YouTube CEO Neal Mohan and Sundar Pichai, the CEO of YouTube’s parent company Google, children’s advocacy group Fairplay expresses “serious concern” about the spread of AI-generated videos on both YouTube and YouTube Kids. The letter, which was sent on Wednesday morning, was signed by more than 200 organizations and individual experts such as child psychiatrists and educators.

“This ’ AI slop ’ harms children’s development by distorting their sense of reality, overwhelming their learning processes and hijacking their attention, thereby extending time online and displacing offline activities necessary for their healthy development,” the letter reads. “These harms are particularly acute for young children.” The letter calls on YouTube to clearly label all AI-generated content and ban any AI-generated content on YouTube Kids. They also propose barring AI-generated videos from being recommended to users under 18 and implementing an option for parents to turn off AI-generated content even if their child searches for it.

The letter is signed by 135 organizations including the American Federation of Teachers and the American Counseling Association, and around 100 individual experts like “The Anxious Generation” author Jonathan Haidt. The letter is part of a larger campaign from Fairplay that also includes a petition.

Much of this AI-generated content is fast-paced with bright colors, lively music and clickbait titles that work to grab the attention of young viewers, the letter outlines. There has been a growing movement online against AI-generated content, particularly when it looks or feels low quality or leans into the meaninglessness of “ brainrot.”

Spokesperson Boot Bullwinkle said in a statement that YouTube has “high standards for the content in YouTube Kids, including limiting AI-generated content in the app to a small set of high-quality channels.”

“We also provide parents the option to block channels. Across YouTube, we prioritize transparency when it comes to AI content, labeling content from our own AI tools, and requiring creators to disclose realistic AI content,” Bullwinkle said. “We’re always evolving our approach to stay current as the ecosystem evolves.”

YouTube's current policy regarding AI-generated content requires creators to disclose when content that's “realistic” is made with altered or synthetic media, including generative AI. Creators are not required to disclose when generative AI is used to create content that is clearly unrealistic, including animated videos and those with special effects.

YouTube said it is actively working on developing labels for YouTube Kids.

In its letter, Fairplay argues that voluntary disclosure policy and what it sees as an “extremely limited” definition of altered and synthetic content mean kids still see a flood of AI-generated videos that are not labeled as such. They also argue that many children who watch YouTube videos are not yet able to read or to comprehend something like an AI disclosure. That leaves children “to fend for themselves or their parents to play whack-a-mole,” the letter reads.

Fairplay's campaign comes shortly after Google’s AI Futures Fund invested $1 million into Animaj, an AI animation studio that makes videos for kids and draws in staggeringly high viewership numbers, according to Bloomberg.

The campaign follows a landmark verdict in a social media addiction trial in which a California jury found that YouTube designed its platform to hook young users without concern for their well-being. Meta was also found liable on the same counts as YouTube in the same case.

“Pushing AI slop onto young children is just another testament to how YouTube and YouTube Kids are designed to maximize children’s time online — including babies. AI slop hypnotizes young children, making it hard for them to get off their screens and move onto essential activities like play, sleep and social interaction,” said Rachel Franz, the director of Fairplay’s Young Children Thrive Offline program, in a statement. “What’s more, YouTube’s algorithm makes it impossible for kids to avoid AI slop.”

Earlier this year, YouTube head Mohan listed out “managing AI slop” as one of the company's priorities for 2026. In a January blog post, he wrote that the company was “actively building on our established systems that have been very successful in combatting spam and clickbait, and reducing the spread of low quality, repetitive content.”

FILE - The icons for the YouTube Kids and YouTube apps are displayed on a smartphone in New York on April 25, 2018. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)