Chaos erupted in the Green Zone Saturday. Dozens of armed men in trucks tore through the streets of the only secure (relatively speaking) area of Baghdad, firing automatic weapons into the air and screaming aggressively. But nobody in this jittery town worried.

The shooting was actually to celebrate Iraq’s win Saturday evening in the quarterfinals of the Asian Football Cup. The underdog team is something of a Cinderella story for the millions of Iraqi soccer fans, and is now in the semi-finals. Given the sectarian violence that’s stretching the country to the breaking point, it’s worth enduring some gunfire if it’s unifying Iraq behind a bunch of footballers.