Silent Lonesome Man

0-3. This was the result in Doha, Qatar after the game between Iraq and Iran. Nobody could imagine Iraq would sit bottom of the group, even though it was still early on track. This came after a goalless holding in Seoul against South Korea, in which the Iraqis succeeded in blocking Son Heung-min and his teammates. This performance yet failed to inspire Iraq to do better against Iran, the game ended in humiliation. If you are an Iraqi citizen now, the f word will be used to say about Iraq's form. Probably most Iraqis. Again and again, Iraq has become like a typical yo-yo national team, something that is difficult to answer considering the team has achieved some glories for a war-torn nation. Now, it is clear that there is a crisis within Iraq, a national team... that has been on the struggling mode, to find out how to play its football. So, how to answer that? Iraq did qualify for a World Cup - 1986 when the edition was hosted by Mexico. Iraq was eliminated, though its elimination i...

Iraq is a very passionate nation. Home to some of the oldest and most important civilisations in the world, the Mesopotamian basin was the land where various ancient empires, from Persia, Akkadia, Assyria, Greece and Rome. The Arabs brought Islam and the Arabic language, the Ottomans reinforced the Islamic rule, but none of them outclasses the other, and Iraq became a multicultural state where the Arabic language is the state language. With such a proud past, Iraq should have striven as an Asian football superpower, but they have underachieved so far. There is something the Iraqis lack, well, a question not easy to answer. Iraq is one of the World Cup participants from Asia, but its debut happened 35 years ago. A long, long drought. This was the 1986 FIFA World Cup. Despite the war with Iran at the time, being banned from hosting fixtures at home, Iraq was able to field a competitive national team and beat the UAE and Syria to qualify for their only World Cup to date. In that edition i...