Mancini and Tarkovic inspired by Iraq’s stunning win over Japan

Head coaches Roberto Mancini and Stefan Tarkovic believe their respective sides can learn a lesson or two from Iraq’s 2-1 victory against Japan on Friday, as Saudi Arabia and Kyrgyzstan prepare to face-off in Group F of the AFC Asian Cup on Sunday.
Having come from a goal behind to defeat Oman 2-1 in their opening match, the Green Falcons need a win to book their place in the Round of 16, but for Mancini, the task will not be easy against a Kyrgyzstan side ranked 40 places below them, as shown by 68th-ranked Iraq defeating 18th ranked Japan.
“I think Kyrgyzstan are a good team,” said Mancini, who is managing Saudi Arabia in a major tournament for the first time, having joined in September 2023. “No one thought Iraq could beat Japan, but that is football. After many years in football, you continue to learn every day. The first lesson is that every game is difficult, and things can change at any point during the match and that’s why your concentration needs to be 100% every minute.
“Sure, the first game is the most difficult, but it is behind us now. It is important for us to try to win the second too because we want to close this situation very fast and for this we have to play a very good game.”
The Italian tactician, who previously led his home country to winning Euro 2020, employed a three-man defence in all competitive matches since taking over the Green Falcons’ job, beating Pakistan 4-0 and Jordan 2-0 in the Joint Qualifiers before starting the AFC Asian Cup campaign with a 2-1 win over Oman, and Mancini believes the players have already started to adapt to his ways.
“After we started to play with this system, we conceded only one goal from a penalty, the defenders played very well in the last game, but we can play with four or five defenders, that doesn’t matter. What matters is the quality we put on the pitch and how we defend. The personality and the mentality we put in the match matters more. The atmosphere in our camp is very good and has always been from the start. We work well and the players at this moment are very happy, we want to continue like this all the way.
For the Kyrgyzstan, the 2-0 defeat against Thailand in their campaign opener came as a blow, but the central Asian side had also lost their opening match in UAE 2019 then recovered to advance to the last 16 on their AFC Asian Cup debut. Head coach Stefan Tarkovic wants his side to take inspiration from teams like Iraq and Syria to show their fighting spirit against a theoretically superior Saudi Arabia. “We came here to show our best performance and our best football,” said Tarkovic.
“The first match was not ideal, so we need to learn from our mistakes. The things we did wrong at both boxes, we were discussing how we can do better against Saudi Arabia and that is the most important thing.”
“Football is about balance. Saudi Arabia have their own qualities, we saw that against Oman. So we need to be very focused in attack, but without the attacking phase, there is a possibility to not get anything out of the game, so we need to find balance. Many teams impressed me in the tournament. I like teams with fighting spirit Yesterday, Japan controlled the game against Iraq, but Iraq won.”