Who rocks? Iraq!

In one of the more inspiring sports stories of the year, Iraq's national men's soccer team completed a major upset yesterday beating Saudi Arabia to win the Asian Cup. In their path to the title they beat regional powerhouses Australia and South Korea. The Saudis were favored in this match, but Iraqi captain Younis Mahmoud scored the games only goal in the 71st minute to give the Iraqis a win and also qualified them to play in the FIFA Confederations Cup where they may end up playing against the U.S. Currently Brazil(Copa America winners), Italy(World Cup winners), the U.S.(Gold Cup winners), South Africa(host), and Iraq(Asian Cup winners) are the teams playing in the tournament. There will be three more spots awarded to the winners of the African Cup of Nations, Oceania's Nations Cup and UEFA's European Cup. Confederations cup will be played in 2009 as sort of a World Cup practice for South Africa, hosts of World Cup 2010.

This Iraq team was made up of Sunni, Shiite, and Kurd players. They had to live in neutral countries to train because of the state of war in their home country. In fact, they won't even be able to bring the cup to Iraq because of the dangers they would face. 50 people were killed by car bombers while celebrating the semifinal victory over South Korea.

In any case, congratulations to Iraq for a greatly earned victory. I couldn't be more pleased.