MLS: Amid Olympic disappointment, Meram looks to build a bright future for Iraqi football

Justin Meram was hoping he would be in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this summer. The Columbus Crew SC winger had Olympic dreams with the Iraqi national team that were dashed at the last minute.

“Yeah, you know it’s disappointing, but that’s part of being a professional,” Meram told Yahoo Sport UK this week. “Unfortunately, the MLS season runs through the whole summer, and when I was called in to the training camps I couldn’t be a part of them because we [Columbus] had games. I would have missed 7 to 8 games depending on how far we went, and in a 34 game schedule that is almost a quarter of a season.”

Raised in Shelby Township, a suburb of Detroit Michigan, Meram’s intent was always to represent the Iraq, though his path to the national team was far from conventional.

“There was a guy that ran a Facebook page about Iraqi players,” Meram said. “He is called Yousif Alkhafajy, and he found me a couple of years ago. You get a lot of random messages on Facebook [as a player]. I don’t know what made me respond to that one in particular, but I did. Now we’re good friends, and we chat a little bit. I’m very grateful to him as playing for Iraq is probably one of the best things to happen in my football career.”

After being identified as a potential candidate for the national team, Meram began the arduous bureaucratic process of gaining citizenship. His parents, although born and raised in Iraq, had left the country decades ago. “There was a lot of paperwork needed from my parents to show how long they had lived in Iraq, and things like that,” Meram said. “It was about a two year process, and here I am today.”

Making his debut in 2014, he has already celebrated his first goals with the national team. Representing Iraqi Americans in the US, Meram is also the only Christian on his team. That meant he did not speak fluent Arabic, rather Chaldean,
and while that difference was at first an obstacle, it has since served as a bridge point. “I pride myself big on that [my religion],” he said. “There are a lot of Christian Iraqis and Christians from the Middle East that reach out to thank me for keeping my religion strong. I’m the only Christian on the team so that’s obviously a little bit different. I was nervous at first because I didn’t know how they would react to my religion. They definitely had questions for me, and I definitely had questions for them, so we opened a dialogue. It was good. They wanted to understand me a little bit better and vice versa. Now I treat them like my brothers.”

However, not all of their cultural differences have been easily solved. On the pitch there is a sharp contrast between the style play the domestic players prefer, and those based abroad like Meram, and Udinese’s Ali Adnan. “The style in the national team is different,” Meram said. “The biggest adjustment is how to play in the Iraqi way. Here in Columbus we play it out of the back, one and two touch. In the national team it’s a little more direct. We’re trying to speak to the coach and some of the players, but its difficult because they’ve been ingrained in one way.”

Those struggles have also been cast alongside the country’s instability, which has also had an impact on the team. Meram is yet to play in Iraq despite representing his country 18 times, a fact that appears to frustrate him. “Qualification matches for the Asian Cup are in Saudi Arabia. I’ve never had the chance to play or train in Iraq,” Meram said. “We play in Japan or Australia and they have 80,000 fans. We’d have that in Iraq, maybe more. We can’t even feel that home support when we are playing our qualification games. We don’t ever give our opponents a hostile environment.”

In spite of Meram’s absence Iraq performed admirably during the Olympics. The team held hosts Brazil to a goalless draw, before narrowly missing out on qualification from Group A. However, Meram feels that true progress will not manifest itself until the wider issues of the country have been addressed. “Right now I think its at a standstill until the country can provide for the national team,” he said. “I think it takes Iraq getting back on its feet and becoming the beautiful country it once was. I feel for all of them that have to suffer through this time, and for what? Once the country is stable again, which I feel it will be, things will progress.”

Clearly passionate about both his country, and his national team, Meram also speaks with a level of humility and selflessness. Both admirable aspects of his character, it is in hearing stories of Meram’s childhood that it becomes evident why he developed such traits. “I was playing in an indoor match, and I think I scored 12 goals,” he said. “My uncle had trained me at a young age, so I told him I was happy and excited to score so many goals. He went nuts on me, and I couldn’t believe that was his response. He told me that when you’re winning you should never embarrass an opponent. You should always have respect for them, and then he asked me why I ran the score up. That was a very humbling moment for me, and it made me learn more about everything in the game and life. That moment was pretty special to me, and I still think about it daily.”

Meram will continue to take that lesson with him wherever he goes. Columbus remain hopeful of making the playoffs, while Iraq has both the World Cup in 2018 and the Asia Cup in 2019 in their sights. Playing for his country in either tournament would be an immensely proud moment for the 27-year-old, and one that would arrive after a significant amount of hard work. For Meram though, the hope is that it will also serve to benefit others. “We’re trying to bring smiles back home, whether it’s in the Asia Cup or in the final round of qualification for the World Cup,” he said. “We can’t let anything get in the way of succeeding on the pitch.”