Senegal beat Irak 5-0 and Pape Gueye turned the match into a late surge after coming off the bench. He scored twice with his left foot and set up another goal, giving Senegal the kind of finish it needed after an early red card to Sulaka left Irak with ten men.
The scoreline was already heavy by the end, but the search around Senegal Vs Iraq Football Team Selection Positions is really about the consequence. Senegal needed a wide margin to keep its World Cup qualification chances alive, and this result delivered that cushion in the most direct way possible.
Habib Diarra opened the scoring in the 3rd minute, and Senegal never let the match settle after that. Irak were down to ten players in the 10th minute, then spent the rest of the game trying to survive waves of pressure. Ismaïla Sarr made it 2-0 in the 55th minute, and when Senegal made three substitutions in the 56th minute, Pape Gueye, Nicolas Jackson and Iliman Ndiaye entered a game already tilting hard in Senegal’s favor.
Gueye changed it again. He was involved in the buildup that led to Senegal’s third goal, then scored himself in the 70th minute before adding another left-footed finish in the second half. Iliman Ndiaye completed the rout in the 81st minute. By then, Senegal had nearly five times as many attempts as Irak, held 87.8% passing accuracy and left Irak with just one shot on target.
That dominance mattered because a 5-0 win was not enough on its own to settle the race. Senegal’s qualification fate still depended on other results, even after the biggest victory it could have asked for on the day. The team looked like a side trying to force the group open rather than wait for help, and Pape Gueye was the player who made that pressure count.
Senegal’s problem now is simple: the job was done on the field, but the place in dieciseisavos was not. The wait shifts from the pitch to the other results, and that is where the final answer will come.
