They might have lost by 2-1 on Tuesday, but Syria’s World Cup playoff defeat against Australia can’t distract from the team’s extraordinary accomplishment in the 2018 qualifiers.
Part of a low-ranking international team that has never qualified for the World Cup, Syria’s players came just two games from making history. And in that, they’ve given a much needed boost to the Syrian people.
After all, since Syrian dictator Bashar Assad began his brutal crackdown in 2011, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have died and many others have been wounded. But as ESPN noted in an excellent May article, players in the national squad have also faced difficult personal decisions about whether or not to play. While a number of national players are loyal to the Assad regime, others worry that if they fail to play they won’t be able to return to their club teams. Many simply fear that if they don’t play, they’ll end up in one of Assad’s gulags.
To be sure, Assad has appropriated the national team’s success for his own propaganda. Yet the players deserve criticism for their performances. The World Cup qualifiers put them in an impossible situation: forced to choose between risking their own lives and those of their families, or be seen as betraying the suffering of their fellow citizens.
Instead, I think the team should be given huge credit for what they accomplished. It’s not just about the personal and political context in which they played, it’s the fact that they beat many better teams to get so close to next year’s World Cup finals in Russia. By my estimates, while 11 of Australia’s national squad play in top-level European leagues, only 1 Syrian player is signed to a European club. Moreover, the Syrian player’s club is in the Swedish league, one of Europe’s less-prestigious ones.
Still, it didn’t matter, Syria’s players pulled together to give their fellow citizens a fleeting glimpse of hope.
It’s a feat worthy of recognition.
