Basil Gorgis is the golden boy of Iraqi football. As a midfielder, he was known for his tenacity and attacking threat. As a player, his energy took the team to unchartered lands. His passion for the game is a true testament for the deep love affair between Iraqis and football. Basil has seen Iraqi football evolve for many years, and was a critical part of the Golden Years that Iraq enjoyed throughout the eighties. Flip through the history pages of Iraqi football with a legend of Arabic football. Take a deep, insightful, and memorable look at the heroics of Basil, in this exclusive interview, only on shakomakonet.

shakomakonet: Tell us about your early childhood football memories ?
Basil: As a child, the only thing that meant anything to me was football. In Arbil, in Ain Kawa, my cousin used to always tell my mother that Basil is going to be a star. Soccer taught me about life and compassion. It gave me the gift of other people’s love, and that remained to be my driving force throughout my career. It all started in the streets.

shakomakonet: How did football go from the streets to clubs?
Basil: As a teenager, I played with the young Homentmen team. It was an Armenian team in Iraq. After that, I moved to another junior side, Tammuz. I was sixteen or seventeen years old at the time. It was with Tammuz, that Mustafa Auda selected me for the Youth team of Al Amana, which was a top flight team at the time and was particularly known for the strength of their youth sides. There, I played alongside people like Natiq Hashim, Kareem and Khalil Allawi, and Ghanib Uraybi.

shakomakonet: That must have been an important step in your development as a player. Tell us more about it.
Basil: At Al Amana, the play was much rougher. During practices, if I wasn’t kicked in the shins, then I would be scratched across the arm from another player fighting for the ball. That taught me to be a strong and tough player, and that was very important to me especially since I was a midfielder. The coaching staff and my teammates were very supportive and encouraging. They were critical in me being selected for the national team, after one year of play, where I got to play with the likes of Falah Hassan. I played there for two years after that, before we all moved to Al Shabab.

shakomakonet: Playing in the league meant so much to you in terms of your growth and development, what kind of effect do you think that the current absence of the league has on Iraqi football?
Basil: With no league, there is no national team. The Iraqi league is good to this day, with many naturally talented players and excellent coaches. That is the main reason behind our success on the national level. The league hasn’t really been around for a very long time now.

shakomakonet: Your career in the league spanned three clubs, Al Amana, Al Shabab, and Al Talaba. Was there a game that stands out more than any other?
Basil: Now that I look back it, every game was a good game. I dream of the day when I can go back and walk through the facilities at Al Shabab club.

shakomakonet: Was there a favorite goal during your league years?
Basil: During my last year with Talaba, we made it to one of the cup finals against Al Shorta. It was during that game that I scored my favorite goal, and believe it or not, it was a penalty kick. Over fifty thousand fans had packed in the Shaab Stadium, and the goalkeeper opposite me was Emad Hashim. Emad was also the net minder for the national team, so he was familiar with the way that I took my spot kicks, as he had seen me do it several times during practice. That made the kick much more difficult to take, and it was such an important one. But I switched to the other side, and managed to get the ball in.

shakomakonet: How different was your first experience with the national team?
Basil: My first game with the nationals was in 1981 in Baghdad at the Shaab Stadium against Jordan. It is much more intimidating than league play, and carries a lot more responsibility with it. The crowd is unified in its support, and doesn’t break along club lines. For the first few minutes, it is very overbearing, but after that is an amazing experience.

shakomakonet: The next major tournament for you prior to the World Cup was the 1985 Arab Tournament in Morocco. Tell us about that experience.
Basil: Anwar Jassam was the coach at the time, and the IFA had decided to send the B team that year plus five players from the A side. Anwar subsequently chose myself, Raad Hamoudi, Ahmed Radhi, Samir Kadhum, and Khalil Allawi. We were very successful in the preliminary stages of the tournament, and made it to the final where we were set to meet Morocco. It was a team that was enjoying the highest of standards boasting world class names in their starting lineup, such as the Fifa Select Team goalie Taymouni. We, however, were playing with a B team but were very confident nonetheless. I scored off a header from a corner into the top corner of the goal in the first nine minutes. I remembered Raad Hammoudi, the goalkeeper came to me and said, “Why did you score so early? They are going to get all pumped up now.” Despite the pressure, the home field advantage, the king’s presence, we won.

shakomakonet: Was there ever a particularly bad game that you remember?
Basil: I was playing against Al Shorta one day, and I got hit in the head. After that, I had absolutely was completely disoriented. After the game, I sat in the dressing room for over an hour before I could even get going again. For the entire game, I ran after the ball, I had no idea what was going on.

shakomakonet: Tell us about fanaticism in the Iraqi league, how crazy is it?
Basil: When fans are harsh, they are in love with the club.

shakomakonet: Basil, tell us about the early stages of qualification for the 1986 FIFA World Cup.
Basil: The coach was Wathiq Naji, and the games were sensitive. I was ready. But Wathiq didn’t keep me off the squad, I don’t know why. We barely beat the Emirates off a last minute goal by Kareem Saddam. Nonetheless, Wathiq was replaced by the world famous Brazilian player then coach Everesto. The Brazilian coach, was new, and hadn’t seen me against the Emirates. I had to prove my self, and I worked my way back to the starting lineup.

shakomakonet: Iraq booked their ticket to Mexico by beating Syria in a two game playoff. What were you thinking prior to the sudden death match up?
Basil: We were all very confident. Every position had three or four good players. When we went to play in Syria, we were all the same age. We had all gone through the different age phases together. Zia Isaac, the master builder, was our coach through the younger stages. He has the greatest impact on my career. He taught me the game from A to Z. We played to a scoreless draw in Damascus in a game that I was critical in. But in the second leg, we easily beat them 3-0 in Taif, Saudi Arabia. That day, I scored a goal and set up the other two. (Iraq played their home game away from Iraq due to security reasons.)

shakomakonet: That was a tremendous achievement, how did it feel?
Basil: It was a dream come true. We were ecstatic. Even the Brazilian coach was crying. There were tens of thousands people waiting for us at the airport, that same night at three in the morning. There were thousands of people in the Streets of Al Mansur, and Al Rashid street.

shakomakonet: After guaranteeing a spot in the tournament, what were your pre World Cup preparations like?
Basil: We went to Brazil, where we had a horrible training camp. We were there to supposedly preparing for the World Cup, but we ended up playing local non professional teams in mediocre facilities. Instead, England had wanted to play us in Wembley and pay us $25,000 on top of it. They had Morocco in their group, and we had just beaten Morocco, so they were interested in playing us. But Uday didn’t want to lose. Even Brazil wanted to play us. Let us play them, even if we lose, let’s go and learn from these guys. Uday used to tell us ‘What’s the difference between you and the Brazilian player? You wear Adidas shoes and he wears Adidas shoes.” It was a joke. We ended up playing Flamengo and losing 3-1.

shakomakonet: Tell us more about Uday, and the horror he brought to the beautiful sport?
Basil: That is a cliché question, the answers are clear. He was a thug. The atmosphere was horrible. When he first came, he wasn’t that involved. But as the eighties progressed, he got more and more obstructive. I once remember in the 1988 Gulf Cup, we were playing Qatar in Doha. The weather was very hot and humid, and that made our play shady in the first half. During the intermission, he called us and threatened us with things like physical abuse and sending us to the front lines of the war. In the second half, we played much better, but it had nothing to do with him. We were just a good team and knew how to adjust our game under different conditions. We won the tournament. But because of instances like that, he thought that his bully tactics were working.

shakomakonet: Back to the World Cup, the draw put you in a group with the host nation who were the Mexicans, Belgium who later finished fourth in the tournament, and Paraguay. What were your thoughts leading up to the tournament?
Basil: I remember Everesto called us for a meeting at the University of Baghdad, days after our qualification. He told us that he only had two months, and the only thing he could do was make us not lose by more than one goal. And that’s exactly what happened. He told us that we couldn’t win, that we could only lose. We should give coaches a much longer time to get a team to a good point. Our federation was interested in football. Look at why the African teams do better on the international scene: their players play in Europe, and their players compete with many different teams through tours and various friendly matches.

shakomakonet: Your first game was against Paraguay, what happened that day?
Basil: They were a very strong team. We played them in Toluca. We lost 1-0, although we scored a goal from a header in the last minute that was disallowed because the referee said that he blown the whistle during the time between the corner kick and the ball bouncing the player’s head.

shakomakonet: The next game was against Mexico, what was different in that matchup?
Basil: This time the match was in the Azteca stadium in Mexico City, and was filled with over 80,000 screaming fans. The crowd charged me. I was the type of player that fed off the energy off the crowd, and wasn't intimidated by it. We played very well, but lost 1-0.

shakomakonet: After respectable showings in the first two matches, what are your impressions of your last match against Belgium?
Basil: I got a red card in that match. The referees were amateurs, and because the games involved us, and we were considered a futile team, our matches were usually assigned to less experienced and less qualified referees than the others. The referee misidentified me for Ghanim Uraybi who was involved with an altercation with a Belgian player, and gave me a yellow card. I started clapping for the referee, and that enticed to the point of relinquishing a second yellow and putting me out of the game. Ahmed Radhi managed to score in that game, and that was great for us despite our loss by one goal that day.

shakomakonet: Were you disappointed with your losses?
Basil: Yes, we were looking forward to winning.

shakomakonet: Why did Iraq suddenly change from their traditional green and white kits to blue and yellow kits with no relevancy to Iraq at all?
Basil: It was Uday. Even Everesto was astounded by the decision and didn’t understand why we would have to do that. He concluded, and told me, “your federation doesn’t like you.”

shakomakonet: What did the World Cup mean to your development as a player?
Basil: For any player, any tournament he plays in will add to his game, imagine what the World Cup means in that way. It was a great experience. Any tournament that I played in after the World Cup, I felt confident taking on the opposition.

shakomakonet: What was your favorite game at the international level?
Basil: The 1985 Arab Tournament semi final against Saudi Arabia in Morocco. I played very well, and we later went on to win the tournament.

shakomakonet: What about your favorite international goal?
Basil: My goal against Morocco that brought us the Arabic championship in 1985.

shakomakonet: Why did you retire?
Basil: I didn’t. I was forced out at the age of thirty. The circumstances in the country were unbearable, in 1992 I left to play for the Winnipeg Fury in Canada. But because I had no official release from the Iraqi Football Association, I wasn’t allowed to play in the Canadian league. After arriving in Canada, my brothers convinced me to apply for residency their.

shakomakonet: You didn’t end your career on your own terms, how does that feel?
Basil: I don’t even have a video tape of a retirement game that I can show for my achievements and hard work.

shakomakonet: Many former players are still involved in Iraqi football, do you have any plans of returning to the game as a coach or in an administrative capacity?
Basil: My life and my family’s lives are established in Canada. It would be very difficult for me to return. But that it is definitely that is something that I would love to do. I did coach a youth team in Canada, however, and they were very successful: the Nineveh Stars.

shakomakonet: In general, do you think a foreign or a local coach is better for Iraq?
Basil: By virtue of experience alone, a foreign coach would be better. We don’t regard foreign coaches as foreign. While they are with us, the are Iraqi.

shakomakonet: Adnan Hamad is at the helm for Iraq right now, do you think he is the right man for the national coaching job?
Basil: Adnan is a great choice, he has worked hard and has made a lot happen with very little resources. Adnan is dedicated to his job, and if he is given the same resources as other coaches in the world, he would make an even better coach. He is very ambitious. I spoke to him during the Olympics, and he was very nervous and somewhat disappointed because he was frustrated with the lack of resources and the violent conditions back home.

shakomakonet: Finally, what are your thoughts on Ammu Baba?
Basil: The ground that Ammu Baba touches is holy.

We would like to thank Basil for his time, and more importantly for all that he has contributed to Iraqi football and to all the joy that he brought to Iraqis worldwide.

Special thanks also to all those that helped in making this memorable moment come together.