No more happy endings for Iraq
<p> </p><p></p><div class="arial_9"><p>Iraq's Olympic soccer team enjoyed a fairytale ride to fourth place at the 2004 Athens Games but experienced their very own nightmare before Christmas on Wednesday when they were dumped out of the 2008 qualifiers.</p><table align="center" border="0" bordercolordark="#ffffff" bordercolorlight="#ffffff" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="2" style="BORDER-RIGHT: #ffffff 0px; BORDER-TOP: #ffffff 0px; BORDER-LEFT: #ffffff 0px; WIDTH: 80px; BORDER-BOTTOM: #ffffff 0px; HEIGHT: 20px; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="MIN-HEIGHT: 16px; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" valign="center"><div align="left" style="TEXT-ALIGN: left"><img align="center" border="0" id="644178" md5="" sourcedescription="编辑提供的本地文件" sourcename="本地文件" src="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/2007-11/23/../../images/attachement/jpg/site1/20071123/000802ab4a6308b0b52d39.jpg" style="WIDTH: 450px; HEIGHT: 239px" title=""/><br/><font size="1" style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">Younis Mahmoud of Iraq celebrates winning the AFC Asian Cup 2007 final against Saudi Arabia with his teammates, at Gelora Bung Karno Stadium on July 29, 2007 in Jakarta, Indonesia. [Getty Images]</font></div></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br/>After the U-23 squad crippled its chances of going to Beijing by giving up two goals to Australia last weekend, it needed the 'Olyroos' (Olympic-Socceroos) to lose its next match on Wednesday for any prayer of claiming one of the three Asian berths on offer.</p><p>As it was, Australia salvaged a late draw with Democratic People's Republic of Korea to top Group A and book its Olympic ticket, while the Iraqis were left to rue what went wrong after three years of unprecedented success on the pitch.</p><p>The problem is that the new generation of U-23 stars pale in comparison to their predecessors, said Dr. Shamil Kamil, acting director of the Asian Football Confederation.</p><p>"In 2004 we had some great players like (Younis) Mahmoud and also a terrific coach in Adnan Hamad," said Kamil, an Iraqi who was close to the Athens squad. "This team, I just hope they can qualify."</p><p>Hamad received the 2004 award for best coach in Asia and left the team that year. Mahmoud, the current national team captain and top scorer at this year's Asian Cup, was named player of the year by Italian sports daily La Gazetta last month. He currently plies his trade for Al-Gharafa in Qatar.</p><p>In Athens, it was Iraq who beat Australia before narrowly missing out on the war-torn country's second-ever Olympic medal. The team was a surprise qualifier for the Games only months after Iraq was reinstated by the IOC. It is the only Asian side to ever see an Olympic semifinal.</p><p>Alberto Gilardino's eighth-minute header denied Iraq a podium finish and handed the bronze medal to Italy, whose players wore black armbands at the deciding match to mourn an Italian journalist killed in the Gulf state.</p><p>"We were better than the Italian team," Hamad said at the time. "We missed a lot of chances to score and we were controlling the game."</p><p>Iraq has no Olympic medals either side of weightlifter Abdul Wahid Aziz's bronze, captured almost half a century ago at the 1960 Rome Games.</p><p><strong>Tightly knit unit</strong></p></div><div width="100%"><center><div id="div_page_roll1" style="display:none"> <span class="arial_8list">Previous</span> <span class="arial_8list">1</span> <a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/2007-11/23/content_6275376_2.htm" class="arial_8list">2</a> <a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/2007-11/23/content_6275376_2.htm" class="arial_8list">Next</a> </div><div id="div_currpage"> <span class="arial_8list">Previous</span> <span class="arial_8list">1</span> <a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/2007-11/23/content_6275376_2.htm" class="arial_8list">2</a> <a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/2007-11/23/content_6275376_2.htm" class="arial_8list">Next</a> </div></center></div><script type="text/javascript" language="javascript"><!--function turnpage(page){ document.all("div_currpage").innerHTML = document.all("div_page_roll"+page).innerHTML;}--></script>