Goda nyheter från Irak

Det känns vältajmat, att Iraks fotbollslag för första gången kvalificerat sig till de Olympiska spelen.

En seger med 3 - 1 mot Saudiarabien, i kombination med att Oman spelade oavgjort mot Kuwait, fixade biljetterna till Aten. Hawar Mulla Mohammed heter spelaren som avgjorde matchen.

Det irakiska fotbollslagets framgångar har ett enormt symbolvärde. Amerikanska tidningar (som ju i normalfallet skiter i käringsporten fotboll) skriver om segern, såväl på sportsidor som på nyhetsplats.

Seattle Times:

Iraq's soccer team, whose players were brutalized and whose stadium was used as a torture chamber under the regime of Saddam Hussein, qualified for the Olympics with a victory over Saudi Arabia.

"The soccer stadium was the scene of torture under Uday Hussein," said David Phillips, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and an expert on Iraq. "The fact that Iraqis can now field a soccer team that displays the full mosaic of their population marks another step in the struggle of Iraq to become a normal country again."

Det tydligaste exemplet på propagandavärdet av denna fotbollsseger är att nyheten toppar koalitionens provisoriska myndighets (CPA) hemsida.

In a stunning upset victory, the Iraq national football team defeated Saudi Arabia tonight 3 to1 to earn a trip to the 2004 Olympic Summer games in Athens. The victory marks the first time in Iraq’s history that its football team will compete in the Olympics.

“This means Iraq is on the right path,” said Hawar Mulla Mohammed through tears moments after the game. He had scored the team’s go-ahead, and eventually winning, goal of the game. “Our entire country deserves this incredible win. When the bus pulled into the stadium tonight we refused to think of anything but winning and now we are headed to Athens,” concluded the soon to be Olympian.