Amid the daily horrors in Iraq, the complaints of a soccer coach that the U.S.-led coalition isn’t giving enough support to Iraq’s national team seem trivial in the extreme.

Hardly a day passes in Iraq when there aren’t ambushes or suicide bombings. A guerrilla attack on an Army helicopter killed 16 Americans and wounded 20 on Sunday. A blast near a Shiite Muslim shrine killed at least one passer-by on Monday. The grim tolls of war go on inexorably.

Consider, then, the criticism of Iraq’s national soccer coach, Bernd Stange:

“In a country without any working cinemas or theaters, where people are afraid to go out at night, the successes of our team are a matter of huge national pride,” Stange told The Associated Press in Baghdad. “That’s important for the return of normalcy. Doesn’t the coalition, doesn’t Paul Bremer understand this?”

Stange went on to growl indignantly that Bremer, Iraq’s chief U.S. administrator, had not called to congratulate the players after they qualified for the Asia Cup in China next June.

As admirable as Stange’s zeal for his sport may be, Bremer has a lot more on his mind than soccer. Keeping the electricity going, feeding people, trying to stop the killing are a tad higher on his priority list.

Yet Stange makes a valid point that Bremer, when he has a moment, might do well to heed: In times of chaos, sports can lend a needed sense of sanity.

Americans learned that after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Was there a more poignant scene symbolizing the national recovery than President Bush throwing out the first pitch at the World Series in Yankee Stadium?

There was no heroism or great significance in Bush’s strike, as there were in the efforts of thousands of firefighters, police and volunteers after the attacks. But that pitch and those games helped reassure millions of Americans that, even in the face of terrorism, life could resume with a semblance of normalcy.

Iraqis need all the reassurance they can get from the Americans and other coalition forces that no matter how hazardous life is now, there is hope that it will get better. For soccer-loving Iraqis, there may be no more potent symbol of that than the rise of their national team from the ashes of war and the legacy of tortured players by one of Saddam Hussein’s late sons.

For Bremer and the coalition trying to calm things down in Iraq, there may be no easier and economical way of building goodwill than to show support for the soccer team – symbolically with congratulatory calls and praise, and financially with a relatively tiny amount of funds. It might also help to bridge the cultural divide between the Americans and Iraqis that has hindered the rebuilding of the country.

Stange, a German who used to coach East Germany and Australia’s Perth Glory, is in Baghdad to do his part – unless he makes good on his threat to quit if authorities don’t help with aid to prepare for the Asia Cup.

He took over the team last year, stayed away from the country during the U.S.-led invasion that ended in May with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and returned to Baghdad soon afterward.

“I came here and found nothing – no balls, no nets, no funds, no competitions and no players,” he said. “The main stadium had been turned into a parking lot for American tanks and its turf (was) destroyed.”

Stange cobbled together a team for the Asia Cup qualifying, and a month ago those resolute players beat Bahrain 5-1 in Malaysia in their first game, then Myanmar 3-0.

“We started from zero and we had three months to prepare for the qualifiers, but we did it,” Stange said. “We came ahead in our group of teams that had spent millions to get to China.”

The funding the Iraqis got for equipment, training and travel came from FIFA, soccer’s ruling body, and the Asian Football Confederation.

They are also helping to rebuild the national stadium and federation headquarters destroyed in the war. The German Football Union paid for his team to train in Germany. Stange dreams of leading his team to the World Cup in Germany in 2006 “as a symbol of the new Iraq.”

Without more help, though, it will be impossible to keep the Iraqi team together, Stange said, because all of its players have already signed or have been offered contracts in the Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia. If there is no change, he said, he, too, will leave by year’s end.

Phone messages from the AP to Bremer about the soccer issue were not returned Monday. With a barrage of three mortar rounds in Baghdad, following the attack on the helicopter and the explosion near the Muslim shrine, Bremer had far bigger problems to face.

Soccer is the smallest of stuff, seemingly insignificant in a life-and-death world. Yet perhaps it is there, in the kicking of a ball and the pride of a nation, that some measure of peace can be found.

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Steve Wilstein is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at swilstein(at)ap.org

AP-ES-11-03-03 1906EST