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Iraq

Well! Why not?

2003-12-21

Bernd Stange, the (German) coach of the Iraqi national soccer team, in an interview with the German daily "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung":

I donât want to elevate my soccer to a level that it doesnât belong on.

But he's going to...
But it is a very important part of Iraqi life. Earlier the professional matches were sold out with 55,000 fans. For one year soccer has been taken away from the Iraqis. If you took football or baseball away from the Americans for a year theyâd also be missing something. Had the Americans recognized the meaning of soccer they would have given us a field to practice on long ago.

Where were you practicing before? Did they stop you from going there?
They could have transported the unwanted turf from the womenâs World Cup matches that they threw or gave away to Baghdad. It must be possible to take along a few rolls of turf if you can bring tanks weighing tons to Baghdad. That would have been possible with a little bit of heart and caring.

"They don't care! They just don't care!"
I can only advise the Americans that they must pay attention to such things if they want to reach the hearts of the people in Iraq. In so doing they can win much more than they could with their military machinery.

First the military machinery, then the soccer field. Get it Bernd? This is the second bitch on the subject I've seen from this guy. He hasn't gotten any more coherent.

Posted by:tipper.

#6 Weeeell, ya know, Stange was the national coach of... East Germany. And in November 2002 he signed a contract as national coach of Iraq. And you know who signed as the employer? Of course Uday Hussein, who had his own ideas about "motivating" athletes.

Oh but Stange said he was only interested in football...

Maybe this history has something to do with the lukewarm U.S. response?

That said the German Football Association has contributed quite a bit to Iraqi football after the war. It's not just grass that's lacking in Baghdad. From what I know the Albanians have hardly ever played on grass so the Iraqis might manage to do as well.

He is right about one thing: Iraqis are crazy about football and Stange managed to get Iraq into the World Championship 2006 qualifications where Iraq has to play Uzbekistan, Palestine and Taiwan. It would give Iraq an enormous boost if they could win that. You would not believe what it meant to Germany to win the World Championship of 1954 against all odds. If Iraq just manages to qualify it would be terrific for them. Soccer is baseball, football and basketball rolled in one for them and they are actually quite good at it. The U.S. never managed to make baseball popular in Germany after 1945, it simply had no tradition at all here.

Posted by: True German Ally 2003-12-21 11:04:55 PM

#5 Oh I know, he asked Germany if they would repair the field, and they said yes, BUT only if they could get a contract to do it, right?
(Specifically a contract where the American taxpayers pay for it, and Germany gets good PR out of it)

Posted by: TS 2003-12-21 10:44:10 PM

#4 "I donât want to ..." often a preface for exactly that. WTFO? Our society is founded on the tenet of self-help, Dude! What'cha been doing; cowering in a spider hole? Plant your own grass! Talk about chutzpah. Low, but irresistable.

Posted by: Glenn (not Reynolds) 2003-12-21 10:44:08 PM

#3 Is Bernd saying grass doesn't grow in Iraq? Seems unlikely considering how much fertilizer he's spreading...

Posted by: PBMcL 2003-12-21 10:33:14 PM

#2 Why doesn't he ask Germany, his home country, who hasn't contributed much, if anything, to Iraq, to repair the field?
Maybe his mission is not so much coaching soccer as it is coaching the Iraqi's to hate America.

Posted by: TS 2003-12-21 10:33:00 PM

#1 And here we've been worrying about keeping the lights on and providing running water. Obviously, Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, Franks, et al., should be brought up on war crimes charges for not sending over a few tons of sod and turf. Further proof of what a callous, uncaring society we are in comparision to, say, THE GERMANS, who haven't sent F*CK ALL to help Iraq! (other than some america-hating commie scum soccer coach)

I hope this guy takes a few kicks to the groin during practice. I'm sure we could find a few volunteers among the troops to pull the duty.

What a tool.

Posted by: 4thInfVet 2003-12-21 10:22:47 PM

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