As part of the segment of The National's Football in Times of Crisis series focusing on Iraq, Ahmed Rizvi picks the five best players ever to emerge from the country.
Younus Mahmoud
Iraq’s most capped player with 139 appearances, Mahmoud is a live wire who leaves it all on the pitch. Captain of the team when Iraq won the 2007 Asian Cup, Mahmoud, who has the map of Iraq tattooed on his arms, scored the winning goal in the final of that tournament against Saudi Arabia. The 32-year-old striker is second on Iraq’s list of all-time goalscorers with 53, eight shy of Hussein Saeed’s tally.
Emmanuel Baba Dawud
Better known as “Ammo” Baba, the late Dawud is a legend of Iraqi football. An ethnic Assyrian Christian, he was a member of Iraq’s first international team and made 17 appearances from 1957-66, scoring 11 times. A prolific goalscorer at club level, he also coached the national team and was one of the few men who openly confronted Uday Hussein, the notorious president of the Iraq Football Association.
FEATURE: Football in times of crisis: Iraq's love of the game refuses to waiver in face of violence
Ahmed Radhi
Widely regarded as Iraq’s best player of all-time, Radhi had a phenomenal goalscoring record at international level, netting 42 times in 73 appearances between 1982-1997. He also scored Iraq’s only goal at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, in the 2-1 defeat to Belgium. After the World Cup, Uruguayan side Nacional made a US$1 million (Dh3.6m at today’s rate) offer to Radhi’s club Al Rasheed for his services, but it was rejected. In 1988, he was voted Asian Footballer of the Year.
Hussein Saeed
A member of Iraq’s “golden generation” of the 1980s, Saeed heads the list of the country’s all-time scorers with 61 goals from 126 matches. The tally puts him at No 14 on the list of the top goalscorers in international football. Saeed spent his entire club career with one team, playing 14 years with Al Talaba.
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
