Baghdad - One of the few positive stories coming out of war- torn Iraq in recent years has been the success of their national football teams.
Since 2003, when the country sent an under-23 team to the Asian Cup and managed to qualify for the quarter-finals, Iraqi teams have been grabbing their fair share of international headlines.
In 2004, the international media followed their Cinderella story at the Olympic Games in Athens as the same under-23 team reached the semi-finals of the Olympic football tournament and finished fourth.
But if Iraqi fans thought it could get no better, they were in for a pleasant surprise as Iraq won the silver medal in the football tournament at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha.