March 7, 2009
Photos by Philip Forgit
Soccer players Tariq (left), Muntadar, Omar, have benefitted from the growth of youth soccer.
The beautiful game Soccer is booming in Iraq thanks to American influence By Philip Forgit
Raad Hassan’s feet handle the soccer ball as a jug-
BAGHDAD, Iraq
gler might with his hands. A quick movement of the foot and the ball is in the air, Raad heading it to his friend Sayf Juwad. Both are members of a youth team, Dynamo Egelat in the Kadamiyah hayy or district of Baghdad. The field they play on is in poor condition but, like progress in Iraq, that is relative. The field, once littered with garbage, strewn with mounds of rubble, is now a level field of IR AQI VOICE S grass, albeit parched. Former Rawls The lockers rooms, filled with the Byrd Elementary stench of urine and trash, sport a School teacher fresh coat of paint. Philip Forgit is embedded with As for security, the boys U.S. troops in Iraq, acknowledge that it has improved in filming how the the last year, but that too is relative war has affected as blocks away, just days before, the Iraqi people. Shia pilgrims to the Kadamiyah Fourth in a series. Shrine were murdered by a suicide bomber. Still, this field is progress and the presence of young men playing soccer, who a year ago may have stayed indoors or worse, dug holes for IEDs or spotted for the Jaiysh Al Mahdi militia, is evident. In Baghdad, more than $207,000 of American reconstruction money has renovated several fields. As a tentative peace begins to break out, so too do soccer matches. At the Kadamiyah Sports Club in the Kadamiyah hayy, the Basra Originals and the Kadamiyah Sons of Mousa play a friendly game. A semi-professional league in the second tier of soccer in Iraq, they play a 20-game season. The winners of each half-season playing one another for the title. The field is in better condition than Kadamiyah‘s. The U.S. Army is here, not for the game, but to check on Improvised Rocket Assisted Mortar threats. These are poor-man rocket launchers. Three rockets fell just short of a U.S. Army compound three days before. The field is suspected as the launch site, but the athletic director has seen nothing. The sprawling athletic complex instead echoes the stirring of normalcy in Baghdad as workers build a volleyball court in one section. In another, waiters ready an outdoor restaurant overlooking the various fields, setting out plastic chairs and tables and turning on brightly colored patio lights for the young couples who will gather for dates and the men who will come to argue sports and smoke the hooka. Southwest of Kadamiyah, in the Kharkh hayy, a game played between a Rhamaniyah all-hayy team and one from Kharkh showcases an integrated squad of Sunni and Shia boys. The game is played in the shadow of the Zaura Stadium and its crumbling façade. On the main field, a professional team, Melab alZaura is playing a friendly against a National Police team. The boys from Kharkh and Rhamaniyah on the practice field next to the stadium dream of playing for Zaura or any of the 24 teams in the top league in Iraq, but today they are here because of CPT Guillory of U.S. Army 442 Forward Support Company, Golf Troop and Operation Soccer Jersey(OSJ).
and Shia. We play together, there His parents, and is no difference between us.” businesses like Muntadar, a Shia chimes in, “We Yanceys’ Cherished are friends, we are brothers. Memories, Flowers and Makoo mushkela (no problem)! Gifts in the captain’s Muhammad, a Shia says that his hometown of De Soto, parents let him play with his Missouri have bought friends because nobody fights. over 200 jerseys and 60 These three are from soccer balls to outfit the Ramaniyah. When asked about twenty teams in these security they said it improved in hayys. the last year but before, “at the The event plays as time of the Haifa Street War, we metaphor for the didn’t go out, we just stayed improving situation in inside.” Two and three years Baghdad. Officials ago, Haifa Street was an open demonstrate Iraqi hosair morgue, bodies lay in the pitality distributing street. Buildings bare the pock sodas and cakes. marked evidence of street to CPT Guillory and De street fighting between militias. Soto, Missouri show Ayad credits the relative the compassion of peace in his Kharkh hayy to the Americans and their Iraqi Army and cooperation by soldiers. Security is the residents. When asked, their tight, the field ringed prediction for Iraq’s future, they with American and Iraqi Army and Police. A boy nicknamed “English,” due to his red hair and were hopeful, “for the best”. At the end of the game, a Dignitaries make their freckles, has adopted qualities of Americans. group of boys, gathered at the speeches lauding the fence, do as most Iraqi children do when they see progress. Meanwhile, several soldiers of the Iraqi Army engage Americans — beg, with the plaintive cry of…”Mister? Mister?” in the culture of corruption that now threatens Iraq as Among the boys, is one that is startling in appearmuch as terrorism, stealing boxes of jerseys and balls to ance, carrying in his features a recessive gene of the last load on to their transports. Western occupation of Iraq, that of the British Empire. American troops “liberate” the boxes in time to be The boy with flaming orange hair and freckles sticks distributed. Despite this, Operation Soccer Jersey is a out in a crowd of Iraqi boys who call him “English”. He success with Kharkh winning 1-0 and Sunni and Shia smiles, asks me to take his picture and says, “Mister, playing together without serious penalty. Mister, Gimme football.” Omar, a Sunni, says, “We are friends; We are Sunni Philip Forgit
Iraquis have embraced the sport of soccer, thanks in large part to Operation Soccery Jersey, which brought 200 jerseys and 60 soccer balls to the area.