July 27, 2007 Jorvan Vieira: Iraq's coach and an ambassador of peace

Following article was posted by soccerblog.com


Brazilian coaches rank a distant second to their players, the number one export to the soccer world. From Washington in the J-League, Zinha in the Mexican Primera, to Edgar Barretto in the Indian NFL, Brazilian players don't just make up the ranks but are their league leaders. The amount of financial transactions and business that involve Brazilian soccer players must be equivalent to the GDP of a small country.

There have been a handful of Brazilian big name coaches, Big Phil Scolari, Carlos Alberto Parriera, and Zico who shared the spotlight in the 2006 World Cup but none went the distance. Since then, Parriera has moved to South Africa, Big Phil has been retained as Portugal's coach, and Zico resigned following Japan's dismal showing.

The perception so far is that Brazilian players make their coaches look good. And since attack is the best form of defense, both defenders and coaches in Brazil are often overlooked and derided. That maybe one reason why when you peruse Globoesporte or any other sport periodical there is hardly a mention of Jorvan Vieira, the present coach of the Iraqi team. He is a former coach of Vasco da Gama and Botafogo, and since those days has gone onto coach 26 club teams and five national squads.

A nomad who has coached numerous small clubs and countries under the radar. In the high flying world of Brazilian soccer he is small potatoes. He is a legend in Morocco where he converted to Islam and assisted Jose Faria in leading the country to the 1986 World Cup, the first African country to do so. Vieira looks more like an ascetic and carries a professorial air, he in fact holds a doctorate in sports sciences from France and speaks 7 languages, including Arabic. He is a very well respected club coach in the Middle East and has also coached the Oman and Kuwait U20 squad in a career spanning 15 years.

The Iraqi coaching job came to him as three other candidates rejected the offer as they were issued death threats. In Brazil, coaches are unceremoniously removed. In Iraq, you don't have that luxury. Vieira's predecessor Akram Ahmed Salman tried to quit after he and his family received death threats, but Iraq's soccer chiefs rejected his resignation. Vieira's assistant can't return to Iraq because the last time he was in Baghdad, gunmen threatened to kidnap his son. In fact, this is the story of many soccer players in the team who have lost family members in the civil war sweeping the country. The dislocation caused by the war is so severe that the makeshift Iraqi FA headquarters is a hotel lobby in Amman.

For someone who came only five weeks before the Asian Cup, Vieira shows a remarkable grasp and understanding of his players and the effect the war has had on them.

"Some of them, if they go to Iraq, they are going to be killed," Vieira said of his squad. "When you don't know where your home is, where your things are, you are lost in space. It's the same when you have no organisation in your house. You don't know where you put your socks or your trousers. It's the same here. They are lost people because of the war."

Very few gave him a chance to succeed. But Vieira understood his job did not entail just coaching a team but acting as a healer.

"They've been through so much. The players are so strong, but sometimes too strong. They have so much pain that I have to be not only a coach, but a psychologist, a father, and a friend to them.They are a very good example of unity to the Iraqi people."

He has been clear on one thing. He and his team are here not just to participate but to play well and challenge for the Asian Cup despite the almost insurmountable problems and the abbreviated training period.

"I have to be confident about winning. I can't talk about my problems, and say we'll do nothing, because I am not a loser. I've lost very few times in my life."

But Vieira has been modest about his own achievements with this overachieving Iraqi team.

"The congratulations should not go to me. It should go to my players, my staff who are working behind me," a humble Vieira told a press conference after his side's stunning 3-1 victory over the Socceroos. "Because without these people I can not do anything. I'm not a magician."

His influence in unifying this team has been nothing short of miraculous, proving many naysayers wrong. He again mentioned that he was not a magician. Humility seems to be a defining trait. He mentions how everyone was at loggerheads in the beginning and his first initiative was to get them all together, bringing players from the various sects, Shia, Sunnis, and the Iraqi Kurds, together.

"I tried to unify them. Now they are together, they kiss each other, they shake each others' hands. They are not fighting or talking politics. They accepted my way. I am not a magician, but I know football can change people."

Vieira may claim not to be a magician but he seems to have a strong sense of destiny. He knows this is no ordinary coaching job.

"When I see everyone working together, it touches my heart, I cannot explain this feeling," he said. "But if the results don't come, maybe the problem will come back. I hope I can make a difference."

So far it is working out fantastically. Iraq are through to the finals to meet Saudi Arabia, a country where Nashat Akram, one of Iraq's heroes plays his club football. The Iraqis have surpassed Vieira's own expectations.

"I want to be in the last four," he said. "If I had more time, I would tell you I'm going to make the final but now that's not possible. If we got to the final then, as the Arabs say, 'it is with God'."

The Iraqi soccer team, the power of football, God, and Jorvan Vieira. The Iraqis love him and want him to remain. As for Brazilians, some should be getting warm fuzzies that it is one of them that is shaping the Iraqis historical run. And it is not a player.

July 29, 2007 A victory for the Iraqi people

Congratulations to Iraq on their 1-0 victory to claim the Asian Cup.

Following article was published by the New York Times. Enjoy the music.

July 29, 2007, 8:20 am
A Pre-Match Music Video

By The New York Times

Here are the lyrics to the song in this video, El Youm Yomak Ya Iraqi, or “This Is Your Day, Iraqi,” by Hussam al Rassam:

This is your day O Iraqi
You are the man with a sense of honor
Play, play and make your opponent in constant bewilderment
Your father, mother, brothers are all waiting for your victory
Your sweetheart will boast among the beautiful girls of your neighborhood
All Iraqis eyes are watching you; the flag is waving in your hand
Victory is always for us, and we won’t accept anything else

The singer, Hussam Mahmood Hashim, was born in 1978 in Hilla, with seven brothers and two sisters. He graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts (painting department) in 1996, and that is why he is nicknamed ‘al-Rassam’, which means the painter. He then studied the lute in the same institute and graduated in 2003.

Al-Rassam left Iraq, with many other artists (he happens to be a Shiite), because of the poor security situation and particularly because Islamic extremists carried out a wave of killing actors, singers, and artists. He took part in a youth song festival in Algiers in 2001 and won his first award. Al-Rassam is well known for his folkloric and national-themed songs.

July 28, 2007 Pasadena, Texas - Police brutality free to harm people

Following article was published by the Houston Chronicle. Amazing that we live in a very violent society where enforcers are judge and executioners.

July 28, 2007, 12:53PM
Man struck by police saw freedom for 1 hour
New specifics from Pasadena PD emerge on the day of his funeral
By ROBERT CROWE

On the day of Pedro Gonzales Jr.'s funeral, community activists Friday called for a federal inquiry into the Pasadena man's death as new details emerged, further complicating a case in which the actions of two officers have come under scrutiny.

Grieving family members learned Friday that the man had been released from the Pasadena Jail about one hour before officers Jason Buckaloo and Christopher Jones re-arrested him on suspicion of public intoxication. Police said Gonzales — spotted sitting in the bed of a pickup less than a mile from the jail — resisted arrest and force was needed to restrain him on July 21. A few hours later, Gonzales was found dead in a jail cell. He had injuries to his head, arm and ribs.

"There's no way he would have been able to buy alcohol because he only had 64 cents in his pocket when he left the jail," Rick Dovalina, spokesman of the League of United Latin American Citizens Council, said Friday.

As the Harris County District Attorney's Office and the Internal Affairs Division of the Pasadena Police Department conduct investigations into Gonzales' death, Dovalina and other activists said an independent investigation conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice is necessary.

Dovalina met with Gonzales' family Friday to discuss all that he had learned about the incident after a meeting this week with Pasadena Police Chief Mike Massey, Capt. Bud Corbett and other officials.

Witness wasn't mentioned

Dovalina reported that officials told him Gonzales was released about 1 a.m. the morning before he was re-arrested. During that meeting, Dovalina said, police officials never mentioned to him that a witness had told police that Gonzales was motionless when the officers hit him.

They also never mentioned that witness Evelyn Moreno had called 911 to report that she had seen the officers beating Gonzales for two minutes.

A recording of the the emergency call Moreno made at 2:09 a.m. reveals the concern in her voice. The 20-year-old woman said she was driving home when she noticed the officers hitting Gonzales outside a business in the 1300 block of East Harris.

On the recording it is difficult to hear Moreno, who called from a pay phone, because she initially wanted to remain anonymous. The female dispatcher's responses seem to indicate that she understood that Moreno was reporting police brutality.

The dispatcher gave Moreno a non-emergency phone number to call, but Moreno declined to call, saying she did not think anyone would take her seriously because the dispatcher did not seem too concerned.

Pasadena officials said an ambulance or police unit was not dispatched to the scene after Moreno called because the incident happened in a matter of two minutes. Paramedics treated Gonzales at the jail after he complained of injuries, but he refused further treatment and was placed in a cell before he died, said Capt. Corbett.

About 7:30 a.m., Gonzales was found dead in a holding cell. Preliminary autopsy reports show Gonzales died from a punctured lung related to a fractured rib. Police said the injuries were the result of force they were required to use because he resisted arrest for public intoxication.

Although autopsy results are incomplete, Dovalina said he doesn't believe Gonzales was drunk or on drugs before his death. The man would not have had time to go to a store to purchase alcohol because Texas businesses must stop selling beer or alcohol after 1 a.m. And there are no bars near the jail because it is a dry portion of Pasadena, family members said.

"It's not right what happened to my husband," said his wife, Diana Gonzales. "He had a 13-year-old daughter and two sons who loved him." Gonzales' family buried him after a simple funeral Friday. To pay for the service, one relative sold an old van. Others chipped in what little they could.

Activists are calling for a federal review of local investigations because, they said, Pasadena police have changed their stories multiple times and held back key information before the Chronicle began inquiring into Gonzales' death.

Pasadena police officials stated Monday that Gonzales was possibly injured about 2 a.m. when he tripped and fell in a parking lot as police officers escorted him to a patrol car while arresting him for public intoxication.

After the Chronicle asked police on Tuesday to explain how he could have suffered multiple injuries by tripping, Corbett said Gonzales sustained some injuries during a struggle with Jones and Buckaloo.

Gonzales' family is especially troubled that Buckaloo had previously been indicted on charges of using excessive force on a 15-year-old South Houston High School student in 2001. A jury found him not guilty in a 2002 trial of official oppression.

Jones, who began working for Pasadena PD this year, had previously worked for the Grandview Police Department in Missouri from April 2002 to July 2006.

A city of Grandview human resources director said he voluntarily left the department. There were no complaints in his personnel file, she said.

robert.crowe@chron.com

July 10, 2007 As War Enters Classrooms, Fear Grips Afghans

Photos and excerpts from article published by The New Work Times.

QALAI SAYEDAN, Afghanistan, July 9 — With their teacher absent, 10 students were allowed to leave school early. These were the girls the gunmen saw first, 10 easy targets walking hand-in-hand through the blue metal gate and on to the winding dirt road.

The staccato of machine-gun fire pelted through the stillness. A 13-year-old named Shukria was hit in the arm and the back, and then teetered into the soft brown of an adjacent wheat field. Zarmina, her 12-year-old sister, ran to her side, listening to the wounded girl’s precious breath and trying to help her stand. But Shukria was too heavy to lift, and the two gunmen, sitting astride a single motorbike, sped closer.

As Zarmina scurried away, the men took a more studied aim at those they already had shot, killing Shukria with bullets to her stomach and heart. Then the attackers seemed to succumb to the frenzy they had begun, forsaking the motorbike and fleeing on foot in a panic, two bobbing heads — one tucked into a helmet, the other swaddled by a handkerchief — vanishing amid the earthen color of the wheat.

Six students were shot here on the afternoon of June 12, two of them fatally. The Qalai Sayedan School — considered among the very best in the central Afghan province of Logar — reopened only last weekend, but even with Kalashnikov-toting guards at the gate, only a quarter of the 1,600 students have dared to return.

Joao Silva for The New York Times: Afghan girls and boys waited to enter their classrooms at the Martyred Saadia School in the town of Qalai Sayedan, 40 miles south of Kabul. The school was recently renamed to honor one of two female students gunned down on June 12 on their way home from school and just reopened last weekend.

Joao Silva for The New York Times: The school in Qalai Sayedan, built four years ago by the German government, enrolls boys through grade 6 and girls through grade 12. Two years ago it was named the top school in the province. Perhaps because it is considered a model for a different kind of future, it has been attacked repeatedly.

Joao Silva for The New York Times: Zarmina, 12, who witnessed the murder of her sister Shukria last month, did not return to the school in Qalai Sayedan when it reopened last weekend. Only 25 percent of the school's students have come back so far.