USA, Italy, Brazil, and…Iraq!?

It was only fitting that captain Younes Mahmoud of the Iraq national football team send his countrymen to the FIFA Confederations Cup. The sons of a land torn by bloodshed and war, the Lions of the Two Rivers defeated Saudi Arabia’s Sons of the Desert, 1-0, and Mahmoud’s goal off an assist by Hawar Mullah Mohammed sent eruptions of joy, and bullets pumped into the air, from Baghdad to Basra, from Fallujah to Sadr City, and from Karbala to Najaf.

Iraq’s victory over Saudi Arabia was one of the few events that brought happiness. In a country where suicide bombers and car bombers make living or dying a lottery of fate, and where the United States has failed to stabilize tensions to the fact that billions of dollars are wasted on a meaningless cause, its football team was its angels, and its salvation.

With Iraq qualifying for the Confederations Cup in 2009, one wonder if they will be in the same pool as the USA. As if our ill-fated campaign wasn’t bad enough…

Let me go ahead and change the pace, and talk a little bit of Little League. First off, there are brackets where there is only one team qualifying, and one team only. You gotta give credit to Dhahran’s Arabia-American Little League because every year since the Transatlantic bracket was made, this group of expatriate children win this tournament every year. It’s not even a contest. It’s like the Golden Bears of California and the national collegiate rugby tournament: only one team has dominated the entire tournament, though there have been a few breaks.

Maybe the people should change the Transatlantic tournament to the “Dhahran Invitational at Kutno,” because patsies like Dubai (stick to your horse racing), Stuttgart (a football city), London (who even plays baseball there? Did you mean “rounders” or “cricket”!?), and Naples (the home of Italian-American cuisine may be best to stick to watching the Azzuri kick butt at Euro 2008, or seeing the next Serie A scandal unfold) can’t lift a tip of a finger to these regulars. Just bloody forfeit; the worst team in my high school baseball league can rough you guys up! Oy!

This year, the boys from Tokyo Kitasuna return to Williamsport, in hopes of bowing to the Lamade bust when they win it all (no hara-kiri, please). For these guys, this is their only chance, because it’s off to the high school ranks, where Koshien is their goal, and everything must be sacrificed in the name of aspiring to be in the ranks of kokoyakyu immortality. That explains why they do not have a Junior, Senior, of Big League entry: the road to Koshien is already keeping them busy.

That, and the examination exams, the cram sessions, and perhaps, the manga and anime that inspires them to visualize where they will be when the former two result in futulity. Make note of it, Hikkikomori nation.