On the evening of Thursday, Aug. 12, Baghdad's Sadr City, a Shiite Muslim slum that has been the scene of pitched battles between supporters of rebellious cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and U.S. and Iraqi troops, lay strangely quiet and still. Where were the armed militiamen of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, usually out in force on the streets? In front of television sets, that's where. Along with everyone else in Iraq, they were reportedly too busy watching the country's soccer team upset Portugal 4-2 in the first round of Olympic competition in Greece to worry about anything as pointless as fomenting civil strife.
The following Sunday, that scene recurred in hot spots all over Iraq as the team pressed its Olympic luck one fairy-tale step further with a 2-0 win over Costa Rica. The victory automatically sent Iraq to the quarterfinals for the first time since the Moscow Games of 1980, making Wednesday's encounter with Morocco moot. At the news, gunfire erupted on the streets of Baghdad, but the rounds were fired in celebration, not deadly retaliation.
As Iraqi coach Adnan Hamed put it after the second match, "We were delighted with this victory because we all recognize what it means to our people."