Australia v Syria: War torn country’s World Cup qualification bid is no fairytale

SYRIA’S improbable World Cup qualifying run has all the trappings of a fairytale — but is this the people’s team or a tool of a cruel regime?

Don’t buy the hype, Syria’s World Cup bid is no fairytale.

ASK Ange Postecoglou about Syria’s higher World Cup calling and his answer indicates the Socceroos coach isn’t one easily distracted by subplots.

“It’s more than just a game for everyone,” Postecoglou said. “Losing this is (losing) a chance to go to a World Cup.

“I don’t buy into it that they have some extra motivation we don’t have.”

Try telling that to the Syrian camp ahead of Thursday’s first playoff leg in Malaysia, though, and the response is starkly different.

“We have a huge motivation: to make the Syrian people happy,” midfielder Zaher Midani said this week.

“The players and management hope we’ll be able to unify our people.

“Australia may have many big-name players known for their individual talents. But we have the enormous potential that comes from performing as a group.”

Syria have never been so close to a maiden World Cup berth.

#Football #WorldCup has become a propaganda tour for #Assad criminal regime, but we know the truth.#Syria
Full: https://t.co/RvwFqiScPh pic.twitter.com/Jnvf05xh7c

— Hope Sarout لمياء (@HopeSarout) September 7, 2017

To describe the team’s unprecedented qualifying run as improbable is an understatement.

On a shoestring budget and shackled by security concerns that deny them from hosting home fixtures on home soil, the world No. 75 nation has toppled several rivals that boast significantly greater pedigree and pay cheques.

It has all the trappings of a fairytale, a Cinderella story, of a country ripped to shreds by civil war finding hope in the all-uniting power of sport.

Last month, when Omar Al Somah scored a sensational stoppage-time equaliser against Iran to snatch Syria’s historic first World Cup playoff spot, thousands of jubilant fans danced on the streets of Damascus in a rare celebration.

I'd be touched by this if they didn't dedicate their win to Assad. I'd cry if the syrian team didn't support the genocide of their people https://t.co/YBca75YGPf

— spicy fatwa (@beyonce_studies) September 6, 2017

However, that the giant public screen on which they watched was erected by president Bashar al-Assad’s dictator government underlines the very reason Syrians are so painfully divided over what their national team represents.

Detractors say the team normalises and legitimises the regime’s myriad of atrocities while sweeping under the carpet the killings, disappearances and detainments of professional soccer players.

The government, unobstructed by FIFA despite calls for the world governing body to act, stands accused of using the team as a propaganda tool, yet another weapon against its own people to join the murder, torture, sexual violence and sarin gas.

The allegation was epitomised in 2015 when then Syria coach Fajr Ibrahim attended a press conference wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with Assad’s image.

(L-R) Syria's head coach Fajr Ibrahim and player Osama Omari (R) wear T-shirts with a portrait of dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2015.

They’re all factors that informed captain Firas Al Khatib’s decision in 2012 — along with teammate Somah — to boycott the national team until the country stopped bombing its civilians.

Five years later the 34-year-old — widely considered Syria’s greatest player — accepted a call to return for the Russia 2018 push, but betrayed signs of a man trapped between a grim divide.

“I’m afraid, I’m afraid,” Khatib told ESPN in May.

“What happened is very complicated, I can’t talk more about these things.

“Better for me, better for my country, better for my family, better for everybody if I not talk about that.

“Whatever happen, 12 million Syrians will love me. Other 12 million will want to kill me.” Indeed, when half a nation’s population is displaced, the chasm cannot expect to be fixed by a sporting team mired in such deep moral conflict.

Regardless, the unlikely success has provided welcome respite to both regime backers and opponents.

Some, like Wafi al-Bahsh, who runs a soccer club in the rebel-run Eastern Ghoutan near Damascus, attempt to reconcile their feelings by separating sport and politics.

“My dream is to see Syria qualify for the World Cup,” he told AFP. “This team is not Assad’s team, it’s Syria’s team.”