Iraq and Saudi Arabia Come Together Just for Kicks<br />On the field, we hope to crush them." The exhibition game in Basra last week between the Iraqi national soccer team<br />and Saudi Arabia was the first against a major regional rival on Iraqi soil since 1990, when the international soccer federation, known as FIFA, banned international matches in Iraq, primarily because of security concerns.<br />The match with the Mideast soccer heavyweight — the Saudi team qualified for the 2018 World Cup — had acquired heavy political dimensions<br />given the years of frosty ties between the two countries since the overthrow of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.<br />But when the Iraqi national soccer team played its first home game against Saudi Arabia in<br />almost 40 years, diplomatic niceties vanished as soon as the Iraqi team took the field.<br />Inside the packed stadium, there was a noticeable lack of Saudi fans — organizers said they had no requests for tickets from Saudi soccer authorities —<br />but there was a smattering of Saudi flags, which the Iraqi soccer association handed out as part of its hospitality campaign.<br />But the match was also a potent symbol of sports diplomacy, with the visitors from the region’s major Sunni<br />Muslim power, Saudi Arabia, coming to Basra, a historic port city in Iraq’s Shiite Muslim heartland.<br />Abdullah Jiboori said that It’s our honor on the line,
