Hussam Fawzi

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Personal information
Hussam Fawzi
Full name	Hussam Fawzi Naji
Date of birth	September 3, 1974 (1974-09-03) (age 33)
Place of birth	Iraq
Playing position	Striker, Second striker
Senior clubs¹
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1995-2005 2005	Al-Zawraa Pegah
National team²
1996-2004	Iraq	0? 0(3)
¹ Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 2 May 2008. ² National team caps and goals correct as of 2 May 2008. * Appearances (Goals)

Hussam Fawzi Naji (born 3 September 1974) is an Iraqi footballer who is a forward, and former captain of the Iraq national football team.

[edit] International Career

He represented Iraq whilst playing his club football at Al-Zawraa. He played for in Iraq at the time when Uday Hussein was in charge of the national team. Hussam was included in the 1996 and 2000 squads for the Asian Cup.

The Iraqi football team came into public attention when newspapers started publishing stories of how Uday was known to punish players physically for achieving poor results in matches. This was used as one of the many reasons used by Tony Blair for justifying the Iraq war.^[1].

As a result of difficulties and the resulting Iraq war Hussam was unable to play international football for a while, however with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein football started to be played again - The Iraqi league had previously been suspended since March 2003. Hussam captained Iraq for the first time on 13 August 2003 against Iran in the first international after this, and for the determination in a difficult time, the 2003 FIFA Presidential Award was presented to the the Iraqi footballing community, whom Husam represented at the award cermony as the National Team captain.^[2]

After the war Hussam spoke about his experiences in London, saying:

“	When players get punished in the West, they get wages taken away, but never their physical safety. There were tortures, there were imprisonments, but this is the time to rebuild.	”
—Hussam Fawzi^[1]

He also admitted the after the Iraqi players were relieved the past was behind them^[3] but he refused to justify the war.^[4]

[edit] International Goals

Scores and results list Iraq's goal tally first.

#	Date	Venue	Opponent	Score	Result	Competition
1	2000-05-23	King Abdullah International Stadium, Amman	Lebanon	2–1	2–1	2000 West Asian Football Federation Championship
2	2003-10-20	Bahrain National Stadium ,Manama	Malaysia	5–1	5–1	2004 Asian Cup qualifiers
3	2004-06-09	King Abdullah International Stadium, Amman	Taiwan	3–0	6–1	2006 FIFA World Cup qualifiers