20 Facts About Ammo Baba

Emmanuel Baba Dawud, better known as Ammo Baba, was an Iraqi football player and coach of the Iraq national football team.

Ammo Baba scored the first international goal for Iraq in 1957 against Morocco at the 2nd Pan Arab Games in Beirut and later returned to the team as the coach in 1978.

Ammo Baba was born in Baghdad, Iraq, of Assyrian ethnicity.

Ammo Baba emerged in the Middle Eastern football scene at the age of 16 at a 1951 Pan Arab School Championship in Cairo playing for the Iraq against the home nation Egypt.

Ammo Baba had been discovered by Iraqi schoolboys' coach Ismail Mohammed while playing for the Liwa Al-Dulaim school province team.

Mohammed gave him the nickname 'Ammo Baba' and advised him to move to Baghdad to play for one of Iraq's top teams.

Ammo Baba had an opportunist's eye for goal but displayed magnificent technique and virtuoso skill of a great footballer.

Ammo Baba was born in Baghdad on the British controlled military camp RAF Hinaidi but moved with his family to live on the Civil Cantonment on the large RAF base in Habbaniya in 1937, where he first learnt to play the game of football.

The prolific marksman was once the captain of a short-lived Arab national team during the mid-Sixties, in a Nasser-inspired experiment in Arab unity which failed due to the fact that, which Ammo Baba puts it 'no one wanted to play against us'.

Ammo Baba had been picked alongside Qais Hamed, and the team was able to beat Al-Ismaili, Al-Ittihad Alexandria, draw with Zamalek and lose to Tersana, with Ammo scoring the first goal for the Arab team, and hit another two goals against Al-Ismaili.

Ammo Baba later played for Maslahat Naqil Al-Rukab and Al-Kuliya Al-Askariya before calling it a day in 1970.

Ammo Baba began his coaching career at Maslahat Naqil Al-Rukab team in Baghdad in 1967 in a player-coach role.

In 1978, Ammo Baba was appointed as Iraq's football military national team coach, leading the team to its third CISM World Military Championship title a year later beating nations such as Austria, Morocco, and Greece, on the way to the final where they beat Italy, on penalties.

Ammo Baba would be appointed and re-appointed on seven occasions, during the 1980s and 1990s.

Iraqis often call the 1980s as the "golden years" of Iraq football, where Ammo Baba led the national team to numerous tournaments and many titles.

Ammo Baba found success in the Iraqi League, where he led Al Talaba to a title in 1981.

Ammu Ammo Baba was one of the few prominent Iraqis to openly confront Uday Hussein, the president of the Iraqi Football Association, once even refusing to accept a medal from him in front of 50,000 fans after a game in 1992.

On 20 January 2006, the 71-year-old Ammo Baba was attacked in his home, where he was tied, blindfolded, beaten and then robbed.

Ammo Baba died in Dohuk at the age of 74 on Wednesday, 27 May 2009, due to complications from diabetes.

Ammo Baba was buried at Baghdad's largest stadium as he requested before his death.