After Hussein, Iraq plays free

The football landscape, like its political counterpart, is changing rapidly in Iraq since the fall of Saddam earlier this year. Erik Kirschbaum reports from Baghdad.

WHEN the whistle went for the kick-off, even the big guys with big guns turned to watch. On a warm afternoon in Baghdad, Iraq's football team was in action again.

The chants of the crowd drowned out the thunka-thunka of US helicopters overhead.

Baghdad had already witnessed its usual mayhem that day. Now all that mattered was 22 men and a ball.

Within minutes, Iraq was one-nil down. A local Baghdad club side, al-Azawrah, had the pride of the nation under pressure.

It didn't bother the men and boys on the terraces.

Some wore the long, traditional dish-dash; others were in Arsenal shirts. All of them were enjoying a carefree 90 minutes.

Iraq's team has three things going for it. It has a brand-new bright-green kit. It has a committed German manager. And it has hope.

Berndt Stange used to play for Dynamo Dresden. Now he runs a squad which, like so much else in Iraq, is rebuilding itself from the ruins.

"There was nothing left after the war. No shirts, no balls, no medical things," Stange said.

"There was no football association, there was absolutely nothing. There is only a handful of people, brave men, who started to rebuild Iraqi soccer."

Competitive soccer came to an end in Iraq in February. The war put paid to the usual league matches. But it also ended the malign influence of Uday Hussein on the national game.

Saddam Hussein's eldest son was, by reputation, a sadistic playboy. One of his playthings was the Iraqi team.

One Iraqi player, Mohaned Ali, recalled the punishments handed out by Uday's guards when the team displeased him.

"They beat our feet, or they cut our hair or they punish your spirit," he recalls with pain etched across his face. But now I can play free because I'm not thinking about those things."

But Stange said it would be a mistake to assume the arrest of Saddam Hussein would lead to a sudden end of the turbulence that had plagued the country.

"I've been hoping the situation would settle down for the last eight months," said the 55-year-old Stange, who has coached Iraq for the last 13 months and was in Germany earlier this month en route to accepting the FIFA award in Basel.

"But I fear the troubles are not over yet," he added. "It's a process that will continue. The hatred and violence can't be switched off right away like a lamp.

"There are still forces of darkness in Iraq. I don't think that everything that's been happening in Iraq can be pinned to just this one person."

Stange has led Iraq to their highest FIFA ranking in 15 years, taking them 30 places up the ranking list from 74 to 44.

With eight wins, one draw and two defeats since he took over, Stange has helped Iraq to reach the Asian championships, and the 2004 Olympics. They also have an eye on qualifying for the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany.

Stange, Mohammed Hussein Saeed, the president of the Iraqi FA, and national team captain Naji Husam all went to Basel earlier in the month to receive the award from FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

Blatter said: "When one of our members experiences a period as trying as that endured by Iraqi football, it is FIFA's duty to step up its support. That is the principle of solidarity that I talk about so often, which constitutes one of the fundamental pillars of the House of FIFA.

"FIFA has simply acknowledged the eagerness of the entire international football family to recognise the courage of Iraq's footballers."

Stange signed up to a four-year contract with the national team in November 2002, when Saddam was still in power. The move at first caused uproar in Germany and elsewhere because it appeared he was supporting a dictatorship.

But Stange, who said he was a football trainer and not a politician, has since won widespread admiration for sticking with the team despite not receiving any wages since February.

He denied he had ever supported Saddam or his son Uday, who ran Iraq's sports sector with an iron fist inside an iron glove.

Stange said his players, some of whom said they had been tortured under Saddam, were still reluctant to speak out against either Uday or Saddam for fear of reprisals.

"My players have been loath to make any comments about the past when Uday was killed, they didn't comment on it or take any positions in public at all," said Stange, who coached Communist East Germany from 1983 to 1988 and later Bundesliga side Hertha Berlin.

"It's understandable. There's been so much fear piled up in the past and that can't be switched off all of a sudden.

"This is the hardest job I've ever had in my life.Stange said. I've never had to work with such difficult conditions."

Not only was the main stadium badly damaged in the war, 12 of his best players have moved abroad where they can earn a far better living than in Iraq's depressed economy.

Soccer authorities have been unable to re-establish the national league because they fear trouble in crowds full of men carrying guns. Stange's driver was shot recently and he has funded his team partly from his own pocket.

"I hope the situation improves," said Stange, who recently had to change hotels after a bomb attack at the one where he was staying. "I have the same fears that the American soldiers have but I don't have a bullet-proof vest. I'm a soft target."

Stange said Saddam's capture should help the situation.

"It's an important milestone and obviously good that the element of uncertainty is gone. If his capture helps make Iraq a safer and more stable place, it will be a great triumph."