Iraqi interest in Uzbekistan’s Pakhtakor is growing rapidly following the arrival of three Iraq internationals — Aymen Hussein, Bashar Resan and Zaid Tahseen.
Iraqi sports broadcaster Al Rabiaa Sports has started showing Pakhtakor matches live and says it has secured exclusive rights to broadcast the Tashkent club’s games in Iraq.
The first such broadcast was Pakhtakor’s Uzbekistan championship away match against Nasaf in Qarshi on August 16. Pakhtakor won 2–1.
The growing Iraqi interest goes beyond television. Hassanane Balal, founder of the English-language Iraq Football Podcast, travelled from London to Uzbekistan to watch Pakhtakor. His project is one of the best-known English-language platforms covering Iraqi football.
Balal then made the seven-hour bus journey from Tashkent to Qarshi together with Pakhtakor ultras for the Nasaf match. After the victory, he wrote that after two matches and two wins, the Uzbek club had already earned a special place in his heart.
Iraq Football Podcast had also been among the first outlets to report Aymen Hussein’s upcoming move to Pakhtakor.
Aymen Hussein, Bashar Resan and Zaid Tahseen are all established Iraq internationals. Their names are also rendered this way in official AFC documentation.