The hope of rebirth from a traumatic background: Iraq's reviving test for its dream to come
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...