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Iraq Coach Criticizes Coalition
We’re taking hits from all sides.
Iraq’s metric football soccer coach criticized the U.S.-led coalition for ignoring the needs of the national team and threatened to resign unless authorities help the squad prepare for the upcoming Asian championships. Maybe we should get the sewage system running right first.
"In a country without any working cinemas or theaters, where people are afraid to go out at night, the successes of our team are a matter of huge national pride," Bernd Stange said Sunday. "That’s important for the return of normalcy. Doesn’t the coalition, doesn’t Paul Bremer understand this?"
Add this to the lessons learned so that we can do better in NK. Must support soc....
Stange, from Germany, complained that Bremer, Iraq’s chief U.S. administrator, had provided no support for the team and had not even called to congratulate the players after they qualified for the Asia Cup, the continent’s most prestigious competition that will be played in China in June. The Associated Press called coalition spokesmen several times but they were either out of their office or would not comment.
Bremer's an American. American football has helmets and padding and 350-pound linemen. We're not totally convinced that metric football exists.
Let’s not forget: must protect antiquti....
Stange, who used to coach East Germany and Australia’s Perth Glory, took over the Iraqi national team in November. He remained outside the country during the U.S.-led invasion that ended in May with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Uday hired him.
Must use some interesting motivational techniques.
They said he used to coach the East Germans...
Stange returned to Baghdad soon after to find the country’s soccer infrastructure devastated by looters and the invading forces.
Hey, bring back those shorts you bloody bastard. That’s it I’m putting you in the book.
"I came here and found nothing, no balls, no nets, no funds, no competitions and no players," he said. "The main stadium had been turned into a parking lot for American tanks and its turf destroyed."
And they drank all the #$!%# gatorade.
Stange quickly reassembled the team ahead of the qualifiers for the Asia Cup which Iraq had to play in Malaysia and Bahrain because it was impossible to have home games.
We would have provided covering fire.
"We started from zero and we had three months to prepare for the qualifiers, but we did it," he said. "We came ahead in our group of teams that had spent millions to get to China."
I’m thinking that Mr. Strange has a single track mind. Maybe he should walk through one of the torture chambers police stations in Basra.
Stange lauded his "as extremely talented and motivated" players as well as the leadership of the Iraqi association, including interim president Hussain Saeed Mohamed and vice president Ahmed Rhady and other volunteers "who are working 20 hours a day without pay to revive the national league."
I was told that there would be quite a few talented Kurds and Shia for the team, but they all seem to be missing.
"But for the coalition, I only have hard words," Stange said. "I know that soccer is not the most important thing in life, but this country has always been crazy about the game and they should understand that our successes are helping boost morale and lift Iraq from the ashes." He said that without an immediate infusion of money for soccer, it will be impossible to keep the national team together because all of its members have already signed or have been offered lucrative contracts in the Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia. "If there is no change, I will leave my job by the end of the year," Stange said.
That's too bad. G'bye.
In postwar Iraq, even the national coach is not immune to dangers. This week gunmen shot his driver in the leg, arm and head. On other occasion, Stange drove through a firefight between American troops and Iraqi fighters on the highway near the city of Fallujah. Stange says he wants to remain in Iraq because he believes the team will do well in the Asia Cup and qualify for the World Cup in Germany in 2006. "That’s my plan, I want them to play in my country as a symbol of the new Iraq," said Stange.
I bet Bremer thought we sould get some slack in comparison to Uday.
Posted by: Super Hose 2003-11-04
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=20782