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July 23, 2007
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Soccer: A rare Iraqi unity prevails in Asian Cup
International Herald Tribune - By Rob Hughes
For the third time in a week, evening gunfire heard across Baghdad was more in celebration than anger after Iraq reached the semifinal of the Asian Cup.
The 2-0 victory over Vietnam in Bangkok on Saturday was more than just a game - an unequal one against the Vietnamese, who were physically no match for the Iraqis. The triumph was in getting together 22 fit Iraqis to take the nation further into the tournament than at any time in the past 30 years.
The players, Sunni, Shiite and Kurd playing shoulder to shoulder under a Brazilian coach, represent a unity almost beyond hope in Iraq. Soccer runs the gamut of the Iraqi population - and with the street celebrations on Saturday, the politicians came out to laud the team.
"A glorious victory," said the president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani.
"I hope to congratulate you on a victory in the final," Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said on state television.
First the Iraqis must win a semifinal against South Korea on Wednesday. The Koreans, forced by injuries to rely on youth, went toe to toe, foul for foul, for 120 goalless minutes against Iran on Sunday, and won the penalty lottery, 4-2, thanks to its goalie, Lee Woon Jae, who made two saves.
Saudi Arabia eased out Uzbekistan, 2-1, in the other quarterfinal Sunday, leading from the third minute to the end. The Saudis will meet Japan in the other semifinal in Hanoi.
But alas, Iraq's traditional firing into air, by civilian and military alike, brought deadly consequences. Stray bullets killed three people and wounded 25 others in Baghdad. It is as if even momentary joy has to be cursed.
"We have a right to dream," the coach, Jorge Vieira, was saying in Bangkok, "but we have to keep our feet on the floor."
Having coached this team for all of six weeks, Vieira had no idea how far he could take Iraq and no concerns about who is rooming with whom. Technically, he says, they are capable players. He sees them lifted round by round by the feedback on their mobile phones telling them their effort means so much in so many dark places back home.
Iraq's coach says he wants more collective effort, less individual play. But his team has already beaten one pre-tournament favorite, Australia, which on Saturday was eliminated from its first adventure in Asian soccer.
Australia held Japan, 1-1, through extra time, a considerable athletic feat given that the Socceroos saw Vince Grella sent off for thrusting his arm into the face of Naohiro Takahara. This indiscretion obliged 10 remaining Aussies to run through hellish broiling heat for 15 minutes of normal time and then 30 added minutes.
Takahara, who plays in Germany for Eintracht Frankfurt, had soldiered on through the first week of the tournament with influenza and still scored a goal a game. He popped up to score again with his left foot after John Aloisi had given Australia the lead midway through the second half. By all reports, Australia then became negative, took off its main strikers and played for a draw.
It had prevailed on the dreaded penalty shootout, when eliminating Uruguay from World Cup qualification last year. In that World Cup, Australia came from a goal down to beat Japan in Kaiserslautern. On Saturday in Hanoi, the boot was on the other foot. The Japanese were on a mission.
"We sat back in the World Cup," said Shunsuke Nakamura. "We watched the video before this game in Hanoi to make sure we didn't make that mistake again. We knew we needed to work as a team to break them down, it was the only way to negate their size and power."
In the end, Japanese resolve and Australian stamina ran just about equal. Ivica Osim, the grumpy 66-year-old Bosnian who came to coach Japan after the World Cup, could not bear to watch the penalties. He went down to the dressing room, saying dramatically: "Penalties are not good for the heart, I would rather die in Sarajevo than here."
His goalkeeper, Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi, saved kicks from Harry Kewell and Lucas Neill. The defender Yuji Nakazawa scored the decisive kick in the 4-3 shootout.
Afterward Nakazawa described the heat of battle against the man he faced during the match, Mark Viduka, the Australian captain.
"Viduka's a big guy," he said. "There was a lot of kicking going on, from him and me, but I didn't back down. He kept saying some nasty stuff, but you'll have to ask him what."
Viduka, having come out of international team retirement to taste the Asian tournament, was, like the rest of the Australians, on his way home to an uncertain reception.
The coach, Graham Arnold - who had said his men were there for the title, at one point accused them of not being up for the sweat and toil of it - is going home to tell his people they should be proud of the 10 men who in adverse circumstances gave everything they had.
No doubt they did, in the end. But Arnold's bosses have already begun a "global" search for a new coach to match the guile of Guus Hiddink, now Russia's head man, who led the team through the World Cup. The Australian soccer federation has announced an instant review of what went wrong in Asia.
Meanwhile, China's coach, Zhu Guanghu, is heading home to explain why he believes that his players performed better than any Chinese team in more than two decades yet failed to get through the group phase for the first time in 27 years.
In China, the name of the game is the same as anywhere else on earth. The name of Zhu's potential successor is already writ large in the papers. Jean-Pierre Papin, the former Marseille striker and former Strasbourg coach, is apparently on his way to talk with China's soccer association.
The one team that China beat, Malaysia, has ordered a government review on the running of Football Association Malaysia.
"Most of the cabinet members are utterly disappointed by what has happened with the national team," said the sports minister, Azalina Othman Said. "FAM's failure is a national disaster, and it shouldn't be this way."
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