Hussein Saeed Mohammed is a lucky Iraqi - he lived to tell about a clash with Uday, one of the brutal sons of deposed leader Saddam Hussein. Uday, 39, and his brother Qusay, 37, died in a firefight with 200 US airborne troops on Tuesday.
Saeed's status as Iraq's pre-eminent soccer hero, and an eminent sportsman, may have saved him from the vengeful son of the dictator. Their argument came during the 2001 World Cup qualifying competition, after Uday sacked the Iraqi team's coach, Adnan Hamd, and replaced him with Croatian Rudolf Belin. Saeed warned the move would condemn Iraq to defeat with the highly significant visit of Iran to Baghdad.
'He told me to go home, you are not with the federation any more,' Saeed said. 'But after we lost the match he told me, 'you were right'.'
As the building blocks of Iraqi society slowly move back into place after the war, one small but sure sign that life in the strife-torn country may be changing for the better is the re-emergence of sport.
This weekend Iraq fields a side in international competition for the first time since the invasion by the United States and Britain when they enter an indoor team in the Asian Futsal Championship in the Iranian capital Tehran.
'It means life. It's a new beginning,' declares Saeed. 'It means that Iraq is still alive, that still we work, although we work under difficult conditions. We have to begin. When football, and sport, begins it is a sign that life is becoming normal.'
Normality in Iraq is, like the truth, an elusive beast.