By the way, I like soccer a lot. I like Manchester United, but take interest in all global soccer affairs. It never fails... soccer unites us as families and civilizations. Saw a little of it in Tijuana, saw it playing in college, saw it this weekend camping, and then this article comes out.
When's the last time something positive was said about Iraq? Something unified? Something hopeful, courageous or humane? Leave it to soccer. The true Olive Branch of the Modern Era.
"We are celebrating because this team represents all Iraqi sects," said Awas Khalid, one of the thousands of Kurds who celebrated the win in the city of Sulaimaniyah in the Kurdish north, where secessionist sentiment has been on the rise.
"This team is for everyone," Khalid said, as revelers around him waved Iraqi and Kurdish flags and chanted "Baghdad is victorious" in Arabic instead of their native Kurdish language.
"The politicians have divided us and these athletes united us," said 24-year-old Shiite Tareq Yassin, taking a break from dancing with hundreds of people in the streets of Amin, a southeastern Baghdad neighborhood. "I am usually very shy. Today, I forgot my shyness and everything else and I could only think of Iraq."
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