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  Heroes of Babylon: 'In Football, We Are All Iraqis'

Heroes of Babylon 'In Football, We Are All Iraqis'

By Maik Grossekathöfer

Part 3: Players Tortured with Electroshocks

Two years ago, a stranger approached him in a bar and said, If you want to get out, I can help. The man was an Iraqi married to an Austrian woman, living in Austria. He told Muhsin he knew a number of important people there.

Muhsin gave him a copy of his passport and signed a contract saying that the man would receive 10 percent of his future salary if his efforts to secure Muhsin a job were successful. Muhsin knows little about Austria, except that the clubs there are not as good as in Spain. "There must be a spot for me there," he says.

When was the last time he spoke with the man?
"I haven't spoken to him yet this year."
What is his name?
"I only know his first name."
In which city does he live? Vienna?
"I don't know."'

The patrons at the pool hall are discussing the latest piece of news: eight deaths in a suicide bombing in Kirkuk. The report's effect on Mushin is obvious. "I despise this," he says. "We treat each other with respect on the national team. I am proud to be playing on this team."

There was a time when fear, not pride, was the primary motivation for a player on the Iraqi national team. The goal was to make no mistakes during the game. Emad Hashim remembers those days well.

Grisly Stories about Udai

After an afternoon training session he collects the balls, takes a bottle of water out of a cooler and sits down on the grass. Hashim, the 40-year-old assistant coach in Arbil, wears a visor cap and sports a carefully trimmed goatee.

Hashim is a legend in Iraq. He was a goalkeeper on the national team for 12 years, between 1987 and 1998. Saddam's eldest son Udai, as chairman of the Iraqi football League, was in charge of the national team then. He gave the expression "football-crazy" a new meaning. He tortured players -- for infractions like an errant pass or missing a penalty shot.

Hassim smiles -- an uncomfortable smile to indicate the senselessness of a dictatorship -- as he begins to tell his grisly stories about Udai.

"I still remember the date. It was June 6, 1997," he begins. Iraq was playing a World Cup qualifying match against Kazakhstan, a home game, which it lost 1:2. "When the stadium was empty, we had to lie down on the grass. Then Udai's men came and beat our feet and backs with sticks."

The entire team of 17 men was locked in a cell for seven days. Each individual player was placed in the notorious Red Room, located in the National Olympic Committee building, for a period of time. "It was a tiny room. Everything was red, the walls, the floor, and there was a red light. I was terrified." Hashim knew that other players had been hung from the ceiling and whipped.

"I closed my eyes and waited. They let me out after a quarter of an hour. Nothing happened." Hashim laughs, as if he still couldn't believe his good fortune.

Udai tortured players with electroshocks, ripped open their skin and forced them to bathe in, and drink, sewage. Hashim was required to address Udai as "Ustas" -- Master. He heard about Udai's death on the radio. Was he pleased?

"I didn't care," says Hashim. "Udai was angry when we played poorly, and he rewarded us when we won. I also benefited from him." Udai gave him a 600-square-meter (6,450-square-foot) house, three cars and $200,000 (€143,000).

'I Shot at the Americans'

Hashim fishes a photo of his wife out of his wallet. He is a Shiite and she is a Sunni. He says -- and he is careful to point out that he doesn't want to be misunderstood -- he is happy that Saddam, the wretched tyrant, is gone. "But the country was stable under Saddam. Now we are a democracy, but there is civil war. We are demoralized. Go see Ali Mansur. Ask him."

Ali Mansur asks us to come in. His daughter is running through the living room. Mansur, 25, has been playing for Arbil since October. He comes from Saddam City, a foul-smelling neighborhood of run-down brick buildings in northeast Baghdad. The neighborhood, essentially a Shiite ghetto, is now called Sadr City.

He welcomed the US troops as liberators. But when they didn't leave the country after Saddam's downfall, he began to fight them. "We don't need them anymore. They unleashed the terror, and they unleashed the sectarian violence. Our lives would be better if they were gone."

Mansur joined Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Militia. He was put in charge of a unit, its numbers fluctuating between 10 and 20 men, armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades. "I was prepared to die for jihad. The virgins in paradise were waiting for me. I shot at the Americans." He says he didn't kill any American soldiers.

The league resumed operations in the fall of 2004, after a two-year hiatus. Mansur played for Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya, and when the club offered him a professional contract, he put down his weapons. "Football was cathartic for me," he says. A year later, he became a striker on the junior national team, playing in India, Thailand and China. He married and became a father.

Then he began receiving ominous phone calls, from men who threatened to kidnap him when he went to training. One of his teammates was overpowered and abducted in front of his house by kidnappers dressed in military uniforms, just as he was about to get into his car and drive to the stadium. The man is still missing today.

I Felt Like a Traitor

Mansur slept in a different location each night, took a different route to training every morning and always carried a pistol in his belt. "I never knew whether I would survive the day," he says.

The stadium, near a US military basis, was regularly hit by shells, and Mansur's leg was lacerated by shrapnel. During a match against Zawraa, a fight broke out in the stands when the referee refused to allow a goal, saying the player was offside. The police shot and killed two spectators.

Mansur traveled to Sydney, Australia in November 2007 to attend the qualifying rounds for the Beijing Olympics. He decided to leave the team, together with two other players and an assistant coach. At 5 a.m. on the morning after the match the men broke into the room where their passports were kept, then went to the nearest police station and petitioned for asylum.

Their petition was accepted. They moved into an apartment near the Opera House. "I became homesick after three months," he said. "I missed my wife and my daughter. I felt like a traitor, and I was afraid someone would do something to them because I had run away."

Through an attorney, Mansur contacted the Iraqi deputy prime minister. He wanted to know what would happen if he returned to Iraq. The deputy prime minister's office replied that he had nothing to fear, but he would never be allowed to play football for his country again. He returned to Iraq in March of 2008. After playing a few matches for his old club, Mansur switched to Arbil.

Defying the Chaos

It's dark, and the day's heat is gradually dissipating. The games -- on the streets, in parking lots and in courtyards -- have stopped. Children sit on the sidewalk, trading cards depicting team photos from the last World Cup. Green jersey for green shorts, Zidane for Ribéry, number 13 for number 13. The adolescents and grown men sit in juice bars and tearooms, watching a football match on TV. Barcelona is playing Villarreal.

The next day, a mass grave is found in southern Iraq. It contains 100 bodies, including women and children.

War and football are incompatible. The national team has had six different coaches in the last seven years, and quality in the league is suffering. The president of the football league, sought by the police for corruption, embezzlement and bribery, has moved abroad. But there are days when this Iraqi team plays better than it actually can. On those days, the players defy the chaos in their lives. That too is part of playing football in Iraq. Sometimes things happen that are not even possible.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan