BAGHDAD, Iraq - A smoky haze settled over the Babylon Hotel Café. A few dozen Iraqi men squeezed onto sofas littered around the room, smoking arkilas and gazing expectantly at 20-inch color television monitors.

The Iraqi football team had just kicked off its Olympic semifinal match against Paraguay in Thessalonika, Greece.

Within minutes, forward Emad Mohammed ran toward Paraguay's goal.  The men in the café sprung to life, cheers of "yala, yala" ("let's go, let's go") echoing through the room.  "It's a good start," said a young man as he reached out for another smoke.

Slide show   Visions of gold: Aug. 29 Demark throws for handball gold, Argentina takes it to the net and Britain's Mark Lewis-Francis jumps for joy.

His confidence in the team -- the underdog in the Olympic competition -- resonated amongst fellow spectators, who for the most part watched the match unfold with a languid ease.  Maybe it was the heat.  As with everywhere in Iraq, power is so intermittent that the air conditioning was not working.  At least not in any recognizable sense. 

The match started at 10 p.m. local time; yet it was 93 degrees Fahrenheit inside the room.

The smoke thickened with each puff from arkilas, the local smoking device consisting of a large vase and a long pipe. And at 1,000 dinar per pipe (less than $1), almost every man in the café was smoking. A cloying apple-like scent sat heavily over the group. 

A waiter walked briskly through the crowd, tossing out plastic bottles of water.  The hiss and pop of a soda can interrupted the Iraqi TV announcer's commentary. A little girl squirmed next to her father. Rows of red, yellow and green fluorescent lights flickered on and off.  The satellite picture occasionally went fuzzy, but no one complained.

Lifting lethargy
Every few minutes in the first half of the match, the lethargy lifted when midfielder Hawar Mulla Mohammed or forward Younis Mahmoud drove the ball toward Paraguay's goal. 

The men inside the café jumped to their feet cheering, then groaned and clapped disgustedly when the ball went wide. 

Nonetheless, they remained hopeful.  "They're playing very well so far," says 26-year-old Osama Ahmed Karim.  "They're playing well as a team."

But 17 minutes into the match, Paraguay scored.  The reaction from the crowd was surprisingly muted.

"That was an off-side goal," murmured the men.  The Iraqi TV announcer begins a long-winded analysis of the Iraqi team's attempts to trap their competitors off-side.  "It's not working," he concluded.

Guhaien Mustafa, a 25-year-old Iraqi, began to worry.  "I hope they will score soon," he said.  "They look strong.  Of course, I will be very disappointed if they don't win, but at least they have made it to the semifinals."

The faces got longer when Paraguay's Jose Cardozo scored his second goal.  "This is stupid, Younis Mahmoud had three chances already," one spectator complained.

But Osama Ahmed Karim tries to put on a brave face.  "It's better if we lose, then we're not going to hear any shooting," he said, referring to the Iraqi way of celebrating.

Thinning crowd
Across the Iraqi capital, which was unusually quiet, the fans were less forgiving and many had abandoned watching the match at the Karrada Café near Assassins Gate.  But a power outage in the neighborhood brought dozens more men to the café.

At time passed, and hopes dwindled, the fans began hoping for a consolation goal. Their faces froze in agony, however, when they saw Salih Sadir's kick fly past the Paraguayan goal and Mahdi Karim miss a free header from just yards away.

Then Paraguay intensified the agony by scoring its third goal, virtually ensuring its passage to an Olympics Final clash against Argentina.

Finally, the patient fans were rewarded. Veteran Razzaq Farhan scores just seven minutes before the end of the match, and the crowd cheered wildly.

"We just wanted one goal against Paraguay," says Ali, the owner of the Karrada Café.  "After all, Italy lost three goals to Argentina so this is very good for us. We lost three, but at least we got one goal.  That one goal means something, that you did something in the match."

A familiar stoicism settled over the features of another fan. "We didn't actually care about the results only," said Ghazwan Ahmed. "To have reached that stage is excellent for our team.  We know the environment and the conditions they had to work under."

"Of course this is our national pride, not just for Iraqis but for all Arabs," said Zaid, a 21-year- old Iraqi. He noted that there was still the match against Italy, during which Iraq will have a chance for the bronze medal.

But the most poetic assessment came from Ahmed. "It's like our souls were playing," he said.  "You can see outside, there are no cars on the street. It's quiet. It's a great and a beautiful feeling to see this."