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Iraqis celebrate after the country's national soccer team beat Saudi Arabia in the Asian Cup final on July 29, 2007. Ali Yussef / AFP/Getty Images

"Winning that tournament suddenly brought all Iraqis together," said Kamel Zugheir, a spokesman for the Iraqi Football Federation. "Those people ... celebrated as Iraqis, not as Sunnis or Shiites. They sent a message to officials that it is easy to bring all Iraqis to stand side by side as it was easy to create problems among them."

Those celebrations came after decades of political and sporting isolation. Iraq's national team wasn't allowed to play at home from 1980 to 2003, when the country was at war with neighboring Iran and then was under international economic sanctions.

World soccer officials extended the ban after the U.S. invasion removed Saddam from power and triggered chaos and then a civil war.

However, games in the northern and relatively safe Kurdish city of Erbil were allowed.

Since 2009, Iraq was given two chances to show that it could host international matches, but violence that once again swept the country in recent years meant international officials pulled permission once more.

The drama surrounding Iraq's national team has played out against the country's greater national tragedy.

Since the fall of Saddam, about 3 million Iraqis have been displaced by violence, and according to the International Organization for Migration.

It isn't known how many Iraqis were killed in the eight years after the U.S. invasion, although estimates have put the number between 112,000 and around 500,000.

Mahmood Abed. NBC News

Soccer fan Mahmood Abed, 18, who sells sunglasses on the streets of Baghdad, could only dream of watching his national team play in person.

"I was raised among a family that used to go to watch the Iraqi team in Iraqi stadiums," Abed told NBC News. "My father always recalls those memories and tells me about what a wonderful feeling it was to watch your team playing in front of you."

He was age 8 at the outbreak of the civil war, which was driven by divisions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

Nevertheless, Abed said, he doesn't make any religious distinction among his countrymen. And that feeling led directly to his love of soccer.

"When I watch a match in the TV for our national team, I do not ask if this player or that is a Sunni or a Shiite," he said. "I only care about the results."

An NBC News producer reported from Baghdad. F. Brinley Bruton reported from London.

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