When Iraq scripted a fairy tale in 2007

doha — When Younis Mahmoud rose high and headed the ball home from a corner kick on a balmy Jakarta evening on July 29, 2007, the largely Indonesian crowd inside the imposing Gelora Bung Karno Stadium erupted in joy.

It was no secret that their sympathies lay with Iraq, who had overcome great hurdles just to compete in the 2007 AFC Asian Cup, the AFC website reported.

Iraq’s rivals for the title were Saudi Arabia, who were already three-time AFC Asian Cup champions. With a seemingly limitless budget and facilities that would be the envy of the world’s top teams, simple logic dictated that victory was theirs for the taking. But then, sport is sometimes no hostage to logic. That is why it brings crowds to stadiums. That is why the whole of Asia, and indeed the whole world desperately wanted Iraq to win.

The very prospect of an unfancied, rag-tag bunch of players, who even struggled to get proper kits for the tournament, winning Asia’s most prestigious sporting prize was so compelling that even sports fans not too keen on football couldn’t escape its pull.

Just think of it: Iraq came into the 2007 AFC Asian Cup winning only two of their eight pre-tournament matches. Even their manager Jorvan Vieira was hired just two months prior to the tournament and the team were forced to train outside Iraq due to the security situation. Brazilian Vieira recalled: “Several of the players had lost relatives in the conflict. Only six players turned up to our first training session.

“Our physio was killed by a bomb in Baghdad two days before we flew out to Bangkok — he was on his way to the travel agent to buy his ticket.