{"id":11408,"date":"2010-08-10T18:20:03","date_gmt":"2010-08-11T01:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/08\/10\/sidka-is-new-iraq-coach\/"},"modified":"2010-08-10T18:20:03","modified_gmt":"2010-08-11T01:20:03","slug":"sidka-is-new-iraq-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/08\/10\/sidka-is-new-iraq-coach\/","title":{"rendered":"Sidka is new Iraq coach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/thesoccerroom.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/wolfgang-sidka.jpg\" height=\"209\" width=\"379\" \/>AFC &#8211; ARBIL, <strong>German coach Wolfgang Sidka on Monday signed on as coach of the Iraqi  national football team ahead of their defence of the AFC Asian Cup  title in Qatar next year. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The 56-year-old, a former manager at Werder Bremen, put his name to a  one-year deal worth 500,000 dollars, Iraqi Football Association (IFA)  president Hussein Saeed said at a press conference in the northern city  of Arbil.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My mission with the Iraqi team will not be easy because I will be  the manager during the Asian Cup,&#8221; Sidka told reporters, referring to  the immense popularity of football in Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I will make sure to put together a strong side,&#8221; added Sidka, who  succeeds the Serb Bora Milutinovic as manager as well as fellow German  coach Bernd Stange who managed the team at the time of the US-led  invasion in 2003.<\/p>\n<p>Iraq have been grouped with Iran, the United Arab Emirates and DPR Korea for the AFC Asian Cup in 2011.<\/p>\n<p>The country is aiming to recreate the glory of its 2007 triumph when  the \u2018Lions of Mesopotamia\u2019 edged Saudi Arabia in the final under  Brazilian Jorvan Vieira.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, however, the Iraqi national squad has been unable to  recapture its form, failing to qualify for this year&#8217;s World Cup in  South Africa, and putting in a lacklustre performance during the  Confederations Cup in 2009.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AFC &#8211; ARBIL, German coach Wolfgang Sidka on Monday signed on as coach of the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22614,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions"],"views":3424,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22614"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}