Mm.

So then we were packing our bags as I was going back to Baghdad, uh, I was gonna go back to Baghdad, 1:00 flight.

We had the driver pick us up, and just before we left the room, I said to my wife, "Let, let me just check and see what that, see if there's something on the news." BBC News, I put it on.

"Breaking news, breaking news, breaking news, Israel's just dropped a bomb on Iran and killed the leader." And I've gone, "Oh my God, here we go." Next thing we get in the car, as I said, going back towards the airport, and the driver says, "Sorry, uh, airport's been shut.

The airspace is shut due to missile attacks," and, and, and that.

And I s- and we go, "Oh." I said, "So what does that mean?" He said, "Well, you can't fly anywhere." So I, I went to a place called, where I took the Socceroos many times, a, a place, a training facility and a hotel, beautiful resort called Jebel Ali.

So we went there.

What has FIFA's engagement been like with you? Uh, are they, uh, are they receptive to your, your issues and concerns?

Okay.

If this is how it is off the field, how do we expect to qualify on the field with this lack of discipline?And it gave me the greatest start that I probably wanted because it was something that I [clears throat] always thought when I coached against the Arabic teams, that technically, as individuals, they're good players.

Physically, they're beasts.

They are big boys, and they, they're physically strong.

Tactically, okay, you gotta k- keep, play the players to their strengths and keep it simple.

But if there was one thing I always questioned about 'em was, um, [clears throat] mentally, uh, what the, how they do things and obviously with the discipline side of it.

So it was straight away the cultural side of it was about being family-orientated.

[laughs]

so you obviously... you know a bit stressed about how you were going to get all the players together because you're all about like getting team cohesion in the right space and culture um so you know it kicks off in mexico with the cartels a few months out and then the bigger problem exists in the middle east but you had that little sojourn over to croatia just before everything did that was that like a clearing of the mind for you you caught up with mark veduka and no look i

was stuck in dubai obviously with everything that was going on the middle east i couldn't get out and uh You know, I was starting to go mental.

You know, because bombs going off, and as I said, I couldn't get out.

I just happened to look at flights out of Dubai one day.

And it was on the Tuesday.

And I was starting to worry about obviously how I was going to get out because the players were in Baghdad and all that.

And I just looked it up and there was one flight, there was about five flights in that day, and one was to Zagreb.

do you