Kind of a cool story--marines in Iraq play soccer with local side, get schooled so bad Iraqis start to side with soldiers. The result: Najaf Poets 7:0 US Marines, 1st Batallion http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/29/offbeat.najaf.soccer.reut/index.html
Hm, that could explain the result -- the French ref distracted the Marine side by constantly trying to surrender to them.
There must be a story somewhere online about the game that the British soldiers played. Anyone know where? I mean, I tried looking with a search engine and so far I have come up empty. Here's a story I came across while searching for the aforementioned one: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/iraq/ny-wosocc0311,0,2648061.story?coll=ny-top-headlines
oh god i also remember reading the marines played in combat boots and camo trousers, c'mon yall, get real! had our all army team been there, we would have trounced them!
Re: oh god F.Y.I. it was a friendly. The US was not there to win at all. It was a morale booster for the locals who just got the shite kicked out of them in a war.
Besides, it was a case of an existing club side thrashing a makeshift selection drawn from an infantry battalion (which is only a few hundred men, many of whom likely don't play soccer).