Fahad Talib
Squad number 1 · Al-Talaba
Their 2026 World Cup
Fahad Talib travelled to the 2026 World Cup with Iraq, wearing number 1, without ever getting on the pitch. His side played 3 matches (3 defeats) and bowed out in the group stage (Group I), beaten by Senegal 5-0.
The goalkeeping job went to Jalal Hassan Hachim (2 matches, 135′) and Ahmed Basil (2 matches, 135′).
Another 5 players in the Iraq squad ended up the same way, without a single minute. The full run is on the Iraq team page.
Biography
Fahad Talib Raheem (Arabic: فَهْد طَالِب رَحِيم; born 21 October 1994) is an Iraqi professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper for Iraq Stars League club Al Talaba and the Iraq national team.
Youth career The Goalkeeper has never played for any local team, but went straight into the Al Quwa Al-Jawiya’s youth system in his early teens and broke into the first team aged just 16 in 2011-12. Fahad followed in his father Talib Rahim and elder brother Ali’s footsteps when he joined the Blue Falcons. Growing up he would sit on the sidelines listening attentively to his father’s advice to Ali. Fahad was supervised by the goalkeeping coach Hashim Khamis, the ex-Iraq and Al-Jawiya goalkeeper, maintaining that the man the Al-Jawiya supporters knew as Al-Tayara (“The Airplane”) had been instrumental in his development, with the Jawiya faithful granting the old nickname of his mentor to their new keeper.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) · text adapted from the article.
See all the tournament stats on the World Cup data hub.
Photo: المكتب الاعلامي لرئيس الوزراء Media Office of the Prime Minister in Iraq Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed) · Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)