Mullings

A more frequent publishing of Rich Galen's take on politics, culture and general modern annoyances. This is in addition to MULLINGS which is published Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays at www.mullings.com

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Iraq Wins Asian Cup

The Iraqi National Soccer team defeated heavily favored Saudi Arabia in the finals of the Asian Cup Soccer (Football) tournament on Sunday.

Here's the London Times' coverage .

A terrific guy named Bill Putnam had the idea - way back in 2003-2004 that Soccer was the only thing which united Iraqis. It cut across religious, cultural, and geographic boundaries. One of his excellent ideas was to have "We Support Iraqi Soccer" stickers (in Arabic with appropriate language) bumper strips on every coalition vehicle.

The photo which is attached to the Rich Galen Biography page:



was taken at the Iraqi National Soccer training facility in Baghdad. Bill convinced me to convince the Army Corps of Engineers to see what it would take to refurbish the practice pitch to bring it back up to international standards.

During the Saddam decades Iraqi soccer players were tortured and/or killed for losing important matches. This, as you can imagine, had a negative impact on recruitment for the various age-level international teams.

During the time I was in Iraq it was not at all unusual for someone to walk into the dining facility with a patch on his head from a bullet wound - the result of a spent celebratory round having come through the roof of his trailer.

Congrats to the Iraqi team. And congrats to Bill Putnam. He was on track four years ago, and still is.

Rich

4 Comments:

karlj said...

I had not been long in Baghdad when the Iraqi team made it to, IIRC, the olympic semifinals. Though I was working out of the Monsour district then, I happened to be visiting a friend at Camp Victory that night and got to see the fireworks from a safe distance.

That was an amazing amount of happy-fire, and as many times as I have seen it done there and elsewhere I've never understood the Arab inability to accept it has to come down sometime.

July 30, 2007 9:21 AM  
Jonathan Schlegel said...

Never cared for soccer. Still don't. But I have to admit I was eagerly anticipating the results from this tournament.

July 31, 2007 6:25 AM  
MCB-L said...

Was it Jack Paar or Carson who used to say, "I did not know that" This is called happy fire? What's happy about innocent bystanders getting shot? Not being a native of New orleans I found their practice of shooting guns in the air to celebrate holidays a little odd-Holidays when normal folks shoot fireworks-Of course most NOLA traditions are weird-But this one is just plaid stupid-The injury and death rates double because these dimwatts just don't get the "what goes up must come down" theory-

August 3, 2007 5:28 AM  
vicandmarj said...

Guess it's a FREE COUNTRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

August 9, 2007 12:26 PM  

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