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Heroes of Babylon

'In Football, We Are All Iraqis'

By Maik Grossekathöfer

In a country wracked by sectarian violence, the Iraqi national soccer team is seen as a symbol of both national unity and a better future. But the beautiful game in Iraq can also be deadly -- even as the country's team finds international success.

It begins at eight in the morning. Children swarm into the streets of Arbil, a city of 1.3 million in northern Iraq, and meet up in all of the city's neighborhoods, in Saidawe and Nishtiman, Senko and Nevroz. They meet to play a game called Kurat al-Kadam in Arabic and Topani in Kurdish, a game that doesn't stop until the muezzin calls out from the mosque after sunset.

The game is football.

The children play barefoot, in teams of four players each, on makeshift pitches between parched bushes and Nissan billboards, in the midst of heaps of garbage and in road intersections. They shoot at goals delineated by piles of rocks and empty Pepsi cans.

Adolescents play in parking lots and courtyards, while grown men play in a dusty field in front of a mosque, with tattered nets hanging from the goalposts, one team wearing blue jerseys and the other red. Old men in pressed trousers stand at the fence and watch.

In the citadel above the city, two soldiers dressed in camouflage pass the time with a ball, kicking it into the air or heading it to each other. One of them catches the ball, wipes the sweat from his forehead and says: "If there is one thing all Iraqis love, it is football. In football, there is no old, no young, and there are no Sunnis, Shiites or Christians, no Arabs, Kurds or Turkmen. In football, we are all equal. We are Iraqis. We are fingers on the same hand." He laughs, runs off and passes the ball to the other soldier.

Risk of Bombs at Any Moment

People play in bazaars, where vendors hawk their tomatoes, melons and saddle of lamb. Other vendors sell photos of famous soccer players -- Kaká, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi -- all sacred images in Iraq. Fake jerseys of famous clubs like AC Milan, Arsenal London, Real Madrid and Chelsea are all on sale. The bright yellow jersey worn by Arbil FC is also available.

Arbil FC has won the Iraqi Premier League championship for the last two years in a country fractured by violence. Schools are opening again, and hotels and department stores are being built, and yet car bombs can explode at any moment, terrorist groups can fire missiles, and assassinations, kidnappings and suicide bombings are part of everyday life.

The sport is not just the common denominator of a ruptured society. Football in Iraq is football in a state of emergency, and the national team is the pride of a people demoralized by chronic violence. When it wins matches, it rebuilds what was destroyed by former dictator Saddam Hussein and what the Americans have been unable to provide: a vision of a peaceful future.

When Iraq plays in the Confederations Cup, a sort of dress rehearsal for the World Cup, in mid-June, the team will compete with the host, South Africa, the European champion Spain, and New Zealand. Five members of Arbil FC will play on the national team.

The Franso Hariri Stadium in the northern part of the city, Arbil FC's home, is a large oval stadium with a capacity for 25,000 fans. The groundskeeper waits in the office for the team to show up. It is Thursday, shortly before 4 p.m., and training is about to begin. A radio on the counter blares the latest "breaking news" of three bodies police have found in the south. One of the dead was tortured. The groundskeeper unlocks the door leading from the catacombs out onto the field.

Refusing to Travel to Iraq

There is not a cloud in the sky, the air is still, and the bucket seats are coated with fine dust from the last dust storm. Seven workers wearing wide-brimmed straw hats are crouched at one end of the field, cutting the grass with kitchen knives and scissors. It takes them four days to clip the whole field; then they start again. The team walks onto the lawn. It consists of 6 Kurds and 13 Arabs, of which 6 are Sunnis and 7 Shiites.

The players do nothing but jog and stretch their muscles. They have just returned from Jordan a few hours ago. Arbil plays in the AFC Asian Cup, but its home games are played in the Jordanian capital Amman, because other teams refuse to travel to Iraq. Yesterday Arbil won against Beirut's al-Mabarrah club. There were 200 people in the audience.

"The stadium would have been sold out if we had played in Arbil. We have to pay for the fact that there are fanatics causing chaos in our country," says Luai Salah, a striker with shirt number 11. He is also captain of the national team.

Salah lives in Naz City, a guarded community of 14 sand-colored high-rise buildings. All Arab players at Arbil FC own an apartment there. Each apartment boasts six rooms, three balconies and 225 square meters (2,420 square feet) of living space. This is luxury in Arbil, even though the lights don't work in the stairwell and the hallways smell of oil.

Salah is sitting on his sofa, wearing Bermuda shorts and sandals. The toes on his left foot are slightly stunted. His wife is out with the three children. There is a laptop on the glass coffee table, and the Friday prayers in Kerbala are on television.

Salah is a Shiite, but when he is asked which Islamic sect he belongs to, he replies: "I am an Iraqi Muslim."

He says Kurds play for Samarra, even though the city is in the Sunni Triangle. Sunnis are part of the football team in Najaf, a Shiite holy city. Even Salahaddin, the club in Saddam's Sunni hometown of Tikrit, brings in Shiite players to strengthen its lineup. "Football does what politics is unable to do -- it unites Iraq," says Salah.

More than Murder, Misery and Corruption

He has already shot 10 goals in 18 matches this season. He is fast, and the ball seems to stick to his foot when he dribbles. He has had a powerful kick since boyhood.

Salah is from Baghdad. His father died in the war against Iran, when Salah was three. The family received a monthly martyr's pension of about €1.50 ($2.10). To make ends meet, Salah washed glasses in a teahouse and worked in a carpentry shop. When he was 12, friends took him along to watch the Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya ("Air Force") team train.

He became a regular player, earning €58 ($81) a month at first, enough to feed his family. He also attended university, where he studied astronomy -- at the insistence of his mother, who told him that he couldn't play football forever. He was selected for the Iraqi Olympic team, which came in a sensational fourth at the 2004 games in Athens.

"Our success was based on talent and will," says Salah. "We wanted to prove to the world that Iraq is more than murder, misery and corruption."

Salah was also part of the second miracle, three years later, on July 29, 2007, when Iraq won the Asian Cup in Indonesia. In the final against Saudi Arabia, a Sunni from Kirkuk headed a corner kick from a Kurd from Mosul into the goal, clinching the Iraqi team's 1:0 victory.