Go Iraq!!!

Sorry this is a few days late.

Congratulations to Iraq for winning the Asian Cup! I'd have wished for either Japan or South Korea to get through to the final, less boring than an all Arabian final, but kudos to Iraq and their fighting spirit!

Turns out that all these unexpected results are not so rare in football tournaments. Every now and then you get Greece winning a final (against Portugal, no less, meaning that it's a minnow upsetting a relatively minor footballing power). You get a Denmark, which didn't even qualify for Euro 92, winning the championship. you get Singapore winning the last 2 Tiger cups (except that only half the team are born and bred in Singapore).

For those people who think of Iraq as underdogs, they probably haven't been noticing Iraq's slow creep up the ladder. Last 4 at the last Olympics, Silver at the Asian games. They are not a traditional power but they are slowly getting there.

Some of you may remember that Man U and some other clubs kicked up a fuss when the Asian Football federation ask them to shift their playing dates so that they wouldn't clash with the group qualifiers. Absolutely correct decision, I'd say. Yes, they will get bigger crowds for the big club matches. But it's just not a real tournament, and not really that exciting. Isn't it cool to see Vietnam beat Oman? Or Iraq beat Australia? or Vietnam beat the UAE?

Australia's early exit was a surprise, but they also surprisingly only scraped through the qualifiers. The way some of them were talking, you'd have thought they'd sleepwalk to the title. Some Australian players were complaining that they weren't used to playing in hot and humid weather. I suppose that Saudi Arabia and Iraq are hot and humid countries. It's great for them to almost beat Italy at last year's World Cup, but they look a little softer now. OK, maybe they're a little unlucky to meet Japan so soon, but still...

Was mentioned somewhere that people of Arabian stock are almost ideally suited to play football. No wonder it's so difficult to play against them. Oh and Zidane's parents are Algerians, which means he's also a kind of Arab. Maybe he heatbutted Materazzi because he thought he was Japanese.

All these other regional tournaments are getting interesting: Copa America, African Cup of Nations, and now this.