Asian Cup holders Iraq will be hoping to give China an unhappy start to the Lunar New Year when it kick off its Group One World Cup qualifiers at the Al Ahli Stadium in Dubai on Wednesday.
The Iraqis have not reached the World Cup finals since their sole appearance at Mexico in 1986, but despite being drawn in what is arguably the toughest of the third-round groups, which also includes Australia and Asian Games 2006 gold medallists Qatar, remains confident of progressing to the next round.
"All the pundits have described our group as the 'Group of Death' because all the teams are big names in Asian football," Iraq assistant coach Rahim Hamid said.
"Hopefully we will win a ticket to the next round and we are optimistic we can do it because we beat Australia 3-1 in the Asian Cup last year and we also defeated Qatar 1-0 in the Gulf Cup, while China is not hard to beat."
The Iraqis claimed a 2-1 win over the Chinese in the United Arab Emirates during the qualifiers for the 2007 Asian Cup.
"We are hopeful that our players will continue their impressive recent performances and reflect the position that the Iraq national team have at the moment," Hamid added.
"We will try to take advantage of our preparation camp in UAE to prepare for our first match because it is an important game and we want to make a good start to the qualifiers."
Having replaced Zhu Guanghu after the team's dismal performance at the 2007 Asian Cup, China coach Vladimir Petrovic knows his team is in for a battle after watching Iraq defeat UAE in a friendly last week.
"After watching the friendly between Iraq and UAE, I can say that Iraq are a team with outstanding individual players who are very threatening," Petrovic said.
"Although it was just a friendly and Iraq may not have put 100 per cent into it, I will have to get my players to try to control the midfield."
"The winner will be the side who are successful in the middle. It will be a tough match and we have to be prepared to fight until the final whistle."