Jay, Hawkmoon; <<It's certainly an example of what the country can do when it puts religious and ethnic differences aside. The team is made up of both Shiite and Sunni Muslims with one lone Kurd who scored the opening goal in Iraq's 2-0 victory over Costa Rica.>>
That's why the Sunni and Shiite joined forces!!
As Iraqi soccer team goes, so goes the election
It's time to forget about what Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry did or didn't do in the Vietnam War.
The November presidential election won't be decided by what happened years ago on the battlefields of Southeast Asia. It's being decided right now on the playing fields of Greece.
As the Iraqi soccer teams goes, so goes the U.S. presidential election.
The team's unlikely performance so far in the Athens Olympics mirrors that of the 1980 U.S. hockey team's "Miracle on Ice," but a gold medal this week would make it the all-time Cinderella team in sports history.
Consider the odds against the players. First they had to survive the despotic regime of Saddam Hussein, whose son Uday was put in charge of the Iraqi Olympic Committee. Uday considered having players run punishment laps effeminate. Instead, he substituted beatings and imprisonment — things generally frowned upon by international sports federations.
Then, of course, there's this war going on, with the resultant closure of training fields and shortages of equipment, like soccer balls. (Not a huge problem, considering the Iraqi soccer federation didn't have money to buy equipment. It largely depends on handouts.)
On top of that, the players had no home-team advantage: Because Iraq is unsafe, they had to play their home games abroad (as well as many practice sessions). So nobody gave them any chance of making Athens, particularly because the $200-a-month Iraqi players would have to defeat the millionaire Saudis — something they hadn't done in years — to gain a berth.
And yet somehow they did beat Saudi Arabia.
Two months later, though, the team received another powerful blow. Its longtime German coach and father figure, Bernd Stange, resigned, citing safety concerns. (Perhaps somebody wanted to lop off his head on videotape. If so, I don't blame him, but some soccer purists likely would insist he was too attached to it.)
An Iraqi assistant was given the job, and the team plodded on.
It left Baghdad in the dead of night — to reduce the chances of somebody firing a rocket at the plane. There were no commercial flights, so the Royal Australian Air Force gave the team a lift to Athens in a military C-130 transport.
(In return, the Iraqis beat Australia 1-0 in Saturday's quarterfinal round.)
Once there, the team wasn't prepared to hit the field. Although the players had new uniforms, the jerseys lacked numbers and names. The Portuguese soccer team came to the rescue, lending the Iraqis the necessary equipment to get their uniforms up to specifications.
(In return, Iraq beat powerhouse Portugal 4-2 in the tournament opener.)
The success of the Iraqi team has caught the attention of the entire nation, and has been a powerful morale booster, according to reports from Iraq.
It's certainly an example of what the country can do when it puts religious and ethnic differences aside. The team is made up of both Shiite and Sunni Muslims with one lone Kurd who scored the opening goal in Iraq's 2-0 victory over Costa Rica.
(I don't know what favor Costa Rica did for the Iraqi team, but it must have been a good one.)
It's hard for Americans to comprehend the incredible impact soccer has in most of the rest of the world. For instance, a World Cup qualifying match sparked the July 1969 "Soccer War" between Honduras and El Salvador, which resulted in as many as 2,000 deaths.
If it can start one, who's to say the game can't end a war?
If the Iraqis win Olympic gold, it's not a stretch to envision the entire country (or at least the peaceful majority) seizing on the goodwill this generates to pull together for peace.
And with peace in Iraq, President Bush is re-elected.
Lucky Iraqis. Lucky Bush.
Don't cry for Kerry, though. He'll still have a rich wife — and lots of medals of his own.
Mitch Chase is a DAILY copy editor. His e-mail address is mchase@decaturdaily.com.
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