Back to Khobar for the last round
The other final Group D match returns to Aramco Stadium, where the group opened ten days earlier. Iraq play Singapore on the Gulf coast while Australia play Tajikistan in Riyadh, and neither pair will know the other score until it is over.
Iraq have been coming to this tournament since 1972, and one of the ten trips before this produced the title in 2007. Singapore have been twice, including this one, and have never gone beyond the group stage.
For Iraq the last round is usually about seeding rather than survival. For Singapore it is about finishing a first Asian Cup in forty-three years with something to show for it, which would be a modest thing to want and a considerable thing to take off a former champion.