Iraq’s triumph at 2007 Asian Cup remains the greatest of underdog stories

During the COVID-19 lockdown, I sat down to write a book on the history of Iraqi football.

Actually, it was three books.

The result was the trilogy of “Birth of the Lions of Mesopotamia: The early years of football in Iraq” (2020); “Lions of Mesopotamia: Iraqi football in the two Republics Vol. I” (2021); and “Lions of Mesopotamia: Iraqi football in the two Republics Vol. II” (2021).

On Oct. 2, exactly two years to the day since I had published my first book, I released my fourth book, “Far from War and Politics: The story of Iraq’s 2007 Asian Cup victory.”

Even as I was editing my second and third books, the idea of writing a book on the 2007 Asian Cup triumph had always been at the back of my mind, being as it was one of Iraq’s greatest sporting accomplishments.

These days, when people speak of Iraqi football, that astonishing achievement is the first thing that crops up.

In 2018, when I first started researching my book on the first Iraqi team of 1951, I asked respected Asian football journalist John Duerden if he thought of any publisher who would be interested in it. He suggested starting with “the Saddam era, the 2007 Asian Cup win and the issues following the invasion,” and then including details on the 1951 Iraqi team as historical background.

Four years on, and this is more or less what I have finished with. The story of 2007 is one that inspires.

Six months after speaking to Duerden, I met with Hassanane Balal of the Iraq Football Podcast, and former US Army sergeant-turned-journalist Adam Linehan at an Iraqi restaurant in London to discuss the 2007 Asian Cup and the stories behind the tournament.

Linehan, who served in Afghanistan and Iraq as an army medic, had been intrigued by the story of Iraq’s