Can someone please tell me how I can watch this soccer game on Sunday? ESPN doesn’t tell me. Is there any hope that a basic cable channel will carry this game?
I don’t usually watch sports, but I find it very exciting that in the midst of the Iraq situation their national soccer team may win the Asian Cup, especially if they’d be beating Saudi Arabia.
Anyone else excited?
We get it on Saudi Sports Channel.
I am not too excited, but moved a test up from tomorrow to today. Not a lot of work will get done tomorrow. I told my students I always cheer for Iraq (which is true). They need every bit of happiness they can get.
ESPN in the US is not carrying it, neither is Fox Soccer Channel. Maybe try an ethnic bar with a satellite dish?
That’s amusing that there’s a channel dedicated to soccer, and yet they’re not going to carry it. Apparently they just can’t cram it in on a busy network dedicated to 24/7 soccer.
So, if the Iraqi team loses, are we going to see Hooliganism with AK-47s? I wonder if it’d even be noticed above the background noise…
Hooliganism with AK-47s? You are thinking about the NBA Championship game. I bet Baghdad is quiet for a few hours before the game.
When they were celebrating the semi-finals victory, some people were killed by celebratory gunfire (one news account said three people, another one said seventeen), but more were killed by car bombs planted among the celebrants. I think a loss would yield a more subdued reaction. Isn’t that how it works in Detroit?
Setanta might carry it. Fox soccer channel is basically sky sports and they don’t get all of the games.
Ooh, nice. I hadn’t heard of them before. It doesn’t look like I can see the game without paying the $150 bucks.
Re celebratory gunfire, this articlefrom today:
But
sigh
Anyway, go Iraq! Beat Saudi Arabia!
I’m glad you posted this question. Any idea what time they will be playing EDST?
We will…we will **Iraq you! (stomp stomp) Iraq you! (stomp stomp) **
All I know is “Sunday morning” and that there’s a curfew in Baghdad, because of the game, from 4 PM in Baghdad to 6 AM Monday morning. Which is, what? 9 AM EDT to 11 PM tonight?
As far as I can see, the game is supposed to start at 12:00 GMT (which I think is 8 EDT) – so that’s about 15 minutes from now.
From here (check the bottom of the item)
FWIW
If anyone would care to keep us posted on the score, that’d be wonderful. Thanks!
Yayyy!!! They won! They won! They won! fires kalashnikov in air
OK, now the game’s over…
We are the champions, my friend!
And we’ll keep on fighting… till the end.
Argh! You shot me!! ::holds hand to gaping chest wound::
Oh, well, it’s good to take one for the team…
Cool. Much to talk about tomorrow.
Another question: does then put Iraq in a particularly favorable situation in regards to the World Cup?
I read that the individual members of the Iraq team all live outside the country and play for other teams. Could anyone direct me to more information about where the individual players live and play?
This page has links to mini-biographies of all the Iraqi players.
ETA to save you some clicking:
I live just off Edgware Road south of Old Marylebone Road in London, which locals will know means I’m in a part of town with a large expat Middle Eastern populace. And the Iraqis among them were out celebrating in force last night - the police had to shut Edgware Road for two or three blocks because there were so many people out dancing around ecstatically in the street, cheering, climbing lamp posts, etc., and waving Iraqi flags as they did so. Plenty more were driving around beeping their horns, trailing flags out their car windows and such. The whole spectacle made it even more enjoyable to be sitting outside in the sun at the Victoria sipping my Fuller’s Honey Dew. (At the bottom of the page.)
Fortunately no one in my patch of London was firing AK-47s, at least not that I noticed. 
Awesome! Thank you!