A MONTH ago Jorvan Vieira had dismissed any prospect of Iraq’s national football team reaching the final of the Asian Cup. He had had only two months to prepare and there was not enough time to lick the players into shape, lamented the veteran Brazilian coach.

At the start just half a dozen players attended the training sessions in Jordan.

“If we get to the final then, as the Arabs say, Inshallah, it is with God,” he said, bravely accepting the job after the previous three coaches had quit after death threats.

Now Vieira is having to eat his words. Against all the odds Iraq has gone from triumph to triumph and Asia’s premier football tournament is suddenly within its grasp.

Today it meets Saudi Arabia, also Brazilian trained, in the final in Jakarta. As the Lions of Mesopotamia storm onto the pitch all of Iraq will be cheering. Football is Iraq’s most popular sport and a potent symbol of unity with Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds in the 22-member squad.

The cruel reality of modern-day Iraq, however, is that victory may yet be tarnished by tragedy, just as it was on Wednesday when Iraq won the semi-final and two car bombs ripped through celebrating crowds. At least 50 people were killed and more than 126 wounded.

Iraq’s football miracle is an inspirational story. There is hardly a team member who has not lost a loved one. It is all the more remarkable as it has risen from the ashes of the Saddam Hussein era when Uday Hussein, son of the Iraqi dictator and head of the football federation, kept the national squad on the ball by torturing them for not winning matches.

His cruelty forced many players to flee abroad. One, Sharar Haydar Mohamad al-Hadithi, who played for Iraq in many internationals, was repeatedly hit on the soles of his feet, dragged on his bare back through a gravel pit and then made to jump into a tank of sewage so that his wounds became infected.

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