Jesús Casas García (born 23 October 1973) is a Spanish football coach and current manager of the Iraq national team.
Managerial and coaching career
Early career
Casas began his coaching career at age 29 with the youth sides of Cádiz CF. He later worked as match analyst for SD Eibar and FC Barcelona B, before becoming a scout and match analyst at FC Barcelona. He then returned to Cádiz, to become a director of their youth department, and in January 2018, he became an assistant to Javi Gracia at Watford.
On 5 November 2022, the IFA confirmed that Casas would take charge of the national team for four years on an annual payment of $1m split into monthly wages. Radhi Shenaishil was supposed to lead the national team for the Mexico and Ecuador friendly games in Spain, while Casas would take charge of the games against Costa Rica and Venezuela in Iraq, with his first game coming on 17 November 2022. The following matches were cancelled, as for Costa Rica match due to passport stamp issues at the border, while the match against Venezuela was called off for an unknown reason.[5][6]
He began with the national team officially on 30 December 2022 in a friendly against Kuwait as a preparatory match for the 25th Arabian Gulf Cup in Basra, which they eventually won after a 3–2 victory over Oman in the final, to be their first title in the competition since 1988.[7]
On 19 January 2024, in the edition of the 2023 AFC Asian Cup held in Qatar, Iraq beat Japan 2-1, in what would be the Japanese’s first group stage loss in the tournament since 1988, and also broke Japan’s 10 win streaks in a row. The win also ensured that Iraq would top their group, which last happened in the 2007 edition of the competition, where Iraq went on to be crowned champions.
In the Round of 16 knockout stage, Iraq lost 2–3 to Jordan, as Aymen Hussein was sent-off during the match for excessive celebration. At the press conference, several Iraqi journalists began to point and yell at Casas, surrounding him in a threatening manner. The situation necessitated the intervention of security who escorted the journalists out. The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) later decided to ban those journalists for covering any future AFC tournaments.[8] The Iraqi Football Association showed their full support for Casas following the ordeal, as did the majority of the national team's fans. On 1 February 2024, Casas met with the Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani and the President of the Iraqi Football Association Adnan Dirjal where the incident was discussed, with Casas receiving further backing as Al Sudani promised the journalists involved would be investigated.
