Luton Town’s Ali Al-Hamadi has endured a “difficult”, injury-hit season, managing just one league goal as the Hatters missed out on promotion from the third tier of English soccer. However, the history-making 24-year-old still has a potential World Cup debut to look forward to, with the striker now in line to spearhead Iraq’s return to the global tournament this summer.

“Just mental”

Capped 17 times since his debut in 2021, Al-Hamadi has scored five goals for Iraq - the most important of which came in March, when he helped fire the Lions of Mesopotamia to only their second World Cup. In a qualifying playoff against Bolivia, his 10th-minute strike opened the scoring for Graham Arnold’s men, as the Iraqis won 2-1 to reach the finals for the first time since 1986.

“Forty-six million people [in Iraq], and every single one of them was watching that game,” Al-Hamadi told Talksport after securing a ticket to the tournament in Canada, Mexico and the United States. “It’s just mental - I can’t even put it into words.”

Al-Hamadi’s journey to the World Cup

The joy of sealing a rare World Cup spot for Iraq came just over two decades after Al-Hamadi and his family had been forced to flee the Middle Eastern country.

Born in Maysan, in southeastern Iraq, Al-Hamadi was one when he and mother Asseel left for the U.K. - via Jordan - amid the 2003 onset of the Iraq War. Once in Britain, they were reunited with Al-Hamadi’s father, Ibrahim - who met his son for the first time. In late 2001, Ibrahim had gone into exile after being jailed by the regime of Saddam Hussein, the brutal Iraqi dictator overthrown in the war.

[My father] was an activist and part of a peaceful protest against the dictatorship within the nation,” Al-Hamadi recalled in a 2019 interview for former club Swansea City. “One day, he and other members of the group were raided and taken to prison." After his release, Ibrahim secured refugee status in the U.K. and settled on Merseyside, Al-Hamadi Sr. explained in an interview with the Liverpool Echo.

Having joined his father in Britain, Al-Hamadi grew up in Toxteth, a severely deprived area of Liverpool where playing soccer represented an “escape” from “not amazing circumstances”, the striker told the National News. “Football was always the thing that I just loved doing,” he added. “I felt like I just forgot about everything, whatever problems were going on.”

After a youth career spent with soccer clubs Tranmere Rovers and Swansea, it was at AFC Wimbledon that Al-Hamadi enjoyed his breakthrough, scoring 27 goals. That form earned him a move to Ipswich Town, where he became the first Iraqi to play in the top flight of English men’s soccer.

“Being the first Iraqi, that carries a lot of pride and honor for me and my family,” Al-Hamadi told the National News. “And not just for my family - it’s for people and kids back home in Iraq, to see that somebody’s done that finally.”

At Ipswich, however, Al-Hamadi managed only five goals before being shipped out on loan: first to Stoke City in January 2025, then to Luton at the start of this season. And amid injury struggles at Kenilworth Road, he was limited to 14 games for Jack Wilshere’s team in 2025/26, taking until matchday 42 to open his League One account.

“It’s been a difficult season for me,” Al-Hamadi told Talksport. “I’ve been injured for most of it […]. I’ve not really had any momentum or flow as a striker. I’ve not been able to stay on the pitch consistently.”

“I was just crying”

It was five days before his only goal in a frustrating club season - one in which Luton missed the promotion playoffs by a point - that Al-Hamadi experienced the unadulterated elation of helping Iraq pull off a historic feat.

Speaking to The Athletic, Al-Hamadi recalled his first, tearful conversation with Ibrahim after clinching World Cup qualification. “I rang my dad on the pitch and I was just crying,” he said. “For my dad to leave the country and then for me to come back, I can’t put it into words.

“He deserves it, my family deserves it, and all the Iraqi people deserve it after everything they’ve been through.”

Drawn in World Cup Group I, Iraq face heavyweight opposition on their return to the finals: Kylian Mbappé’s France await on matchday two, after a campaign opener against Erling Haaland’s Norway.

Asked by Talksport about his memories of facing Haaland with Ipswich, in a 4-1 defeat to Manchester City in August 2024, Al-Hamadi said simply: “I got a good view of his hat-trick!”

Iraq’s World Cup Group I schedule:

• June 16: Iraq vs Norway, Gillette Stadium, Foxborough
• June 22: France vs Iraq, Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia
• June 26: Senegal vs Iraq, BMO Field, Toronto

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