Iraqi Soccer Dream Comes True

July 30, 2007 — -- When the final whistle blew after 90 minutes of breathless, passionate soccer, Younes Mahmoud and Hawar Mohammed, the latest heroes in Iraq's Asian Cup glory, crumpled into each other's arms at the center circle of Jakarta's Gelora Bung Karno Stadium.

The two 24-year-olds had connected even more famously just 22 minutes earlier-- then for a 71st minute goal that would make Iraq champions of Asia for the first time.

As his players danced around the Asian Cup trophy, their coach, the Brazilian Jorvan Vieira, looked on in relative calm.

"This has brought great happiness to a whole country," he said after the game. "This is not about a team, this is about human beings."

Vieira insisted Saturday he would resign his post after today's final, regardless of the outcome.

"I'm already a winner," he said before the match, "because nobody expected we would make the finals. We were like outsiders."

Speaking to reporters after the win, Vieira confirmed the decision, saying he was headed home to Brazil. To have "brought a smile to the lips of the Iraqi" people was enough for him, he said.

Iraq midfielder Nashat Akram, named the "man of the match" on Sunday, said during the pre-game press conference that Vieira "changed everything" when he arrived in late April. The squad had been hampered by a similar, if less grossly violent version of modern Iraqi sectarian in-fighting before the Brazilian's arrival.

Now, as Vieira told ABC before his side's quarterfinal match with Vietnam, "They are united. They respect each other and have been working together. Who is a Sunni ... who is Shia is not my problem. That is important for the Iraqi people to see."

Sunday's final was played from the opening kick at an almost unceasingly break-neck pace. Neither team accomplished anything resembling sustained possession. Instead it was mad dashes by both Iraqi and Saudi wingers that created the excitement -- and provoked a string of sharp saves from both keepers.

With less than 20 minutes to play in regular time, the head of Younes Mahmoud, the Iraqi captain, flew above the Saudi goal keeper and directly into the path of his countryman's swerving cross, driving the ball into the net and providing the "Lions of the Two Rivers" the lead that they would never relinquish.