Worldscene: So, in this season of football awards, what prize do we give German coach Bernd Stange? Fans worldwide need no introduction to French wizard Zinedine Zidane, the player who yesterday picked up his third FIFA World Player of the Year trophy.

Likewise, they are all too familiar with Juventus and Czech Republic midfielder Pavel Nedved, the man who looks set to pick up next week's European Player of the Year award from soccer magazine France Football.

But Stange? Readers of this column will recall we wrote about the former Dynamo Dresden player and East German national team manager back in March. He is the man who in November one year ago made the remarkable decision to sign a four-year contract as coach to the Iraqi national team, even as the winds of war were clearly gathering.

Forced out of his 15th floor suite in Baghdad's Sheraton Hotel by the arrival of the US-led military force last March, the 54-year-old reluctantly abandoned his job, promising, however, to return if and when things got better. By last July, in response to a phone call from Baghdad, the redoubtable Stange was back in Iraq, trying to pick up the shattered pieces of the national football team.

The International Olympic Committee building had been burnt. He had no equipment, not even balls, socks and shirts. He had no facilities, not even a whiff of a decent pitch. He had, however, huge faith in his players and in Iraq's passionate enthusiasm for football: "Iraq is a football-mad country", he told the BBC's Alan Green last July, "There are 50,000 people in the stadiums every week. That's why the Americans should do everything they can along with the world community, FIFA and the AFC (Asian Football Confederation) to allow us play football as soon as possible".

Amidst the horror and chaos, the war had brought at least one positive element to the Iraqi football scene. Namely, it had removed the malign influence of the ruling Hussein family from the game. When Stange had first negotiated a contract in Iraq, he had found himself dealing with Uday Hussein, eldest son of Saddam Hussein and head of the Iraqi Football Federation and chairman of Iraq's Olympic Committee.

Uday, since killed in a shoot-out with coalition forces, was a man who allegedly had the national team's footballers beaten (on their feet) by his guards if and when an Iraqi performance on the pitch was not to his liking.

Whilst the removal of the Hussein family represented a major boost for the Iraqi football community, it hardly solved Stange's problems as he set about preparing a side for Asian Nations Cup qualifiers this autumn. Against the background of an unstable domestic security situation and deprived of anything resembling decent training facilities, Stange called in favours from FIFA and Germany and managed to organise an Iraqi team camp in neighbouring Jordan.

His next job was to gather together his players, many of whom had understandably abandoned Iraq, moving to Syria, Eqypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia in search of peace, quiet and a modest salary. Unable to offer any remuneration, Stange had to rely on the players' sense of pride to entice them to make the oft-times difficult trek to Jordan to prepare for the Asian Cup games.

The rest is part fairy-tale part history. Against all the odds, Iraq won their opening qualifier against Bahrain 5-1, going on to qualify for the 2004 Asian Cup. Footballers such as 19-year-old playmaker Nashat Askram, midfielder Mohanad Mohammed Ali and striker Younis Mahmoud, scorer of hat-tricks against both Bahrain and Malaysia, may not exactly be international household names but they were good enough to put Iraq back on the football map.

Little wonder, then that Stange says he has a "fantastic team" who are "full of passion". Little wonder, too, he is proud of the role that the team could yet have in reshaping a post-Hussein, post-US Iraq, arguing that football "can do more than years of diplomacy".

Unfortunately for Stange, however, he claims the occupying coalition force take an interest in football matches "only when fans celebrate by shooting their guns in the air".

Perhaps next year, come the Asian Cup finals, even the Americans might finally begin to understand the importance of football.

In the meantime, should FIFA (or some other international body) not consider making an award to Bernd Stange?

aleagnew@tin.it