Raad Hammoudi


Raad Hammoudi Salman al-Aredhi is a retired Iraqi football player who represented his country as a goalkeeper in the Olympics and the World Cup. He is known as being the most successful goalkeeper in Iraqi football, leading Iraq to the 1986 FIFA World Cup.
He made his international debut in 1976 against Turkey. Raad was an important part of the Al-Shorta side, captaining them to the Iraqi League in season 1979/80. He took three penalties for Al-Shorta, scoring two and missing one. He was goalkeeper of the tournament during Iraq's win in the 1979 Gulf Cup, when he conceded just one goal in six games, he was also in goal when Iraq won the Asian Games in 1982. Raad started his career in 1972 when he joined second division club Kuliya Al-Shurta, a team which later merged with Shurta Al-Najda and Aliyat Al-Shorta to form Al-Shurta Sports Club.
Raad played in the 1984 Olympics and 1986 World Cup in Mexico, where he played in the two games against Paraguay and Belgium. In 1999, Raad was placed by the German-based Federation of Football History & Statistics as Iraq's 4th best player of the century behind the likes of Ahmed Radhi, Hussein Saeed and Habib Jafar.
He is currently the president of the Iraqi Olympic Committee. Raad was voted as the 7th best player in Al-Shorta's history.