Here all of you were criticizing the brutality of the old regime in Iraq, and now look what that steady diet of cigarette burns and cattle prods has done for their soccer team:
PATRAS, Greece -- In its first Olympic competition since its country was shattered by war, Iraq upset star-studded Portugal 4-2 on Thursday in a gritty, come-from-behind victory as about 200 chanting fans cheered and jumped wildly. "This victory will be received with happiness by my people, who have suffered through much," said Iraqi coach Adnan Hamad, whose countrymen were already taking to the streets of back in Baghdad, lighting up the night sky with streaks of celebratory gunfire.
The stunning victory over a country whose senior team made it to final of the recent Euro 2004 tournament brought a rare moment of joy for residents of a country plagued by violence, chaos and constant power outages during the hot summer.
Uday kept telling everyone his specialized programme of super-negative reinforcement would take years to show results, and nobody listened to him. It's a shame, really, that he's not around to enjoy this moment.
Welllll...I don't know if Uday's punishment-based
training bolstered the morale of Iraq's athletes thereby encouraging victories although I'm sure it did a lot to discourage defeat! I can't help wondering if some of that good ol' Yankee underdog spirit isn't rubbing off on the citizens of that beleagured country. What a morale booster!