Kickoff (Cape Town)
2 December 2008
They've both played and coached at the same club and even though there is only five years difference in their ages, they've never met.
Bafana Bafana coach Joel Santana and his counterpart in Iraq, Jorvan Vieira were both born in Brazil and have their roots in Rio de Janeiro's Vasco da Gama. These date back to the early 1970s, but according to Desiree Queiroz, who acts as Santana's translator in South Africa, says as far as she is aware their paths have never crossed in the almost 30 years that have passed since then.
She tells KickOff.com that the Bafana mentor does know of his countryman, but by reputation only.
Santana was 22-years-old when he made his debut at Rio's 'Hill Giants' in 1971.
Vieira, a late starter in the game due to the fact that he had spent three years studying Sports Medicine, only arrived at the São Januário home ground in 1974, the year that Santana moved on after helping Vasco to make history by winning the Brazilian League for the first time.
Veiria soon made up for lost time, not only playing for top clubs Vasco, Botafogo and Portuguesa before hanging up his boots at the age of 27, but also went on to coach all three teams before he left his homeland in 1980.
Since then, Vieira has coached 23 other teams and five national squads.
Santana, too, distinguished himself as a coach at Vasco in Brazil, but that was well into the '80s by which time Vieira had packed his bags and headed half way around the world to Qatar in the Middle East.
Now the two will finally come together for the first time, but it will on opposing benches when Bafana meets the Lions of Mesopotamia in the opening Fifa Confederations' Cup match in June next year.
Vieira's experience in the Middle East and North Africa is extensive. After relocating to Oman in '81 he soon moved to Morocco where he spent over eight years managing FAR Rabat, Wydad, TS Casablanca and IR Tangier.
The Brazilian was appointed assistant manager to the Moroccan national side for the 1986 Fifa World Cup in Mexico and, with José Faria, led the Atlas Lions to the second round of the tournament as group winners ahead of England, Portugal and Poland, becoming the first African side to do so in the process.
Although born in Brazil to a Portuguese father and a Brazilian mother, Vieira currently holds four nationalities: Brazilian, Portuguese, Moroccan and Iraqi, (the last was given to him in 2007 after winning the Asian Cup). He can speak seven languages, including Arabic and now he is learning Persian.
After beating Saudi Arabia 1-0 in the Asian Cup final last year, Vieira, who is married to a Moroccan and is a practising Muslim, announced that he would not renew his contract with the Iraqis, citing 'administrative' problems as the reason.
What he could not say publically was that the problems he was facing were threats of assassination and kidnapping, pressure from religious extremists and even suicide bombing attacks.
"If my contract was for six months and not for two, they would have had to take me to the hospital for crazy people," he said at the time of his resigning even though he had never set foot in Iraq.
Because of the on-going hostilities in Iraq, Vieira trained his squad outside the country. Even the Lions' home internationals were played far away in Syria, Jordan, Qatar and the UAE.
One of the coach's predecessors, Norwegian Egil Olsen, was sacked from the post after just three games because he was even too scared to fly to the Kurdish city of Arbil for a match.
Six months after quitting Iraq, Vieira put his fears behind him and returned earlier this year.
"I have not come here only to collect money," he told reporters as he urged his players on during training in Iraq for the first time in 20 years. "I have come here to win. If I had fears, I would have stayed in my house under my bed."
A rare happy ending? Not quite! Within weeks, the wheels began to fall off Iraqi soccer again.
First came the news that Iraq's appeal to be reinstated in the final round of World Cup qualifying for the 2010 finals in South Africa, following a brief Fifa ban, had failed at the Court of Arbitration in Sport.
Qatar, one of their group opponents, had fielded an ineligible player - a Brazilian Emerson - when the two teams met earlier in the year. Qatar had won 2-0.
It turned out that Emerson had been using a faked birth certificate and was in fact ineligible to play for Qatar as he had already turned out for the Brazilian Under-20 team.
Article 55 of Fifa's competition rules state that a team "found guilty of fielding an ineligible player shall forfeit the match in question ... victory and the resultant three points will be awarded to the opposing team".
An open and shut case, one might think. No; despite having played a team of 10 Qataris and one Brazilian the arbitrators threw the case out because Iraq had been late in paying its fee for the hearing.
"It's disappointing, rules are rules, and Qatar broke Fifa's rules, there is no doubt at all," Vieira is quoted on the internet as saying at the time.
"Too many matches have been played already and there is no way the court would make a decision that would mean these matches had to be replayed. It is too late for that."
The silence coming from the Asian Football Confederation, led by the Qatari Mohamed Bin Hamman, was deafening.
Sure, the Iraqis had plenty of opportunities to rectify things on the pitch, not least in the must-win home game against a now Brazilian-less Qatar, but it's hard to imagine any other national team being allowed to get away with playing someone who had absolutely no right to be in their team.
All this has helped to cement Qatar's status as one of the most hated teams in world football, and not just for cheating Iraq out of a qualification place.
The naturalisation of South American players in the Middle East has been a bitter source of contention. Countries in the region perceive it as favouritism thanks to Hamman's close ties with Fifa's Sepp Blatter. But that is history now as Vieira gears up for his trip to South Africa and a meeting with Joel Santana.
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