2007 Asian Cup triumph<\/a> against the odds sparked celebrations across the country.<\/p>\nThe Iraqi players were semi-professionals who were forced to prepare for the tournament in Jordan because of a security crisis at home that was claiming tens of thousands of lives every year. <\/p>\n
Their shock semi-final victory over South Korea was marred by a suicide-bomb attack on celebrating supporters in Baghdad which killed dozens.<\/p>\n
The young Hussein also endured personal tragedy. <\/p>\n
He was 12 years old, in 2008, when his father – a soldier in the Iraqi army – was shot dead by al-Qaeda while out buying materials for the construction of their home.<\/p>\n
Further tragedy struck a few years later when his older brother was kidnapped during a period of unrest and has not been seen since.<\/p>\n
“I decided to quit playing football to take care of my family, but my mother refused,” Hussein said in an interview.<\/p>\n
Instead, she urged Hussein to pursue his dream – one that has seen him guide Iraq to their first World Cup since 1986. <\/p>\n
Though the path to it has been anything but smooth for the 30-year-old.<\/p>\n
Hussein’s build-up to the World Cup was disrupted when he was detained and questioned for about seven hours at Chicago’s O’Hare airport upon arriving in the United States earlier this month. <\/p>\n
He was eventually allowed in – unlike Iraq’s team photographer Talal Salah.<\/p>\n
When Hussein rose to head past Norway goalkeeper Orjan Nyland, it was a proud moment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hussein grew up in an Iraq where football offered moments of unity amid turmoil. The national team’s 2007 Asian Cup…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}