We work in a region of the world where, in several countries, the basics in life are anything but a certainty.

For example … the domestic soccer league. Is it playing, in Syria? Is it safe to attend, in Iraq? Could riots break out, in Egypt?

Americans have complaints about their lives, but compared to several countries in this part of the world, it’s all cool. The NFL, NBA, MLB, all play games as scheduled, and the idea you run a risk of being killed by attending is silly.

Not so, in several countries in this part of the world, certainly including Iraq, which today played South Korea in the semifinals of the Asian Cup, in Australia.

We did a story about Iraqi football in the Monday editions of The National, and how it struggles on, and how rooting for the Iraq national team can get a guy killed, in the era of the Islamic State.

Football is very, very big in Iraq, which of a time was the premier football country in the Gulf. Of course, that was three wars ago, and decades of upheaval.

Iraq once qualified for the World Cup, Mexico 1986.

Iraq won the Asian Cup as recently as 2007 in one of the great surprises is soccer history. Then, as now, Iraq was a mess, and the notion it could win a 16-team continental tournament was ridiculous.

But Iraq got to the semifinals of the tournament again this year.

After beating Iran in the quarterfinals last week, huge celebrations erupted across Baghdad, and 1,000 people reportedly suffered gunshot wounds — from bullets falling back to earth after “celebratory” gunfire.

A much darker aspect of the game? One report by an anti-Islamic State group, said that 13 young men were caught watching the game in Mosul, which is controlled by IS, and were executed in the street.

The Islamic State a) views football as a rival to religion and opposes it and b) anyone who wants the Iraq football team to win is a traitor.

One of the sources quoted in The National story, above, concedes that in the parts of Iraq dominated by Sunnis, most of which have fallen to IS, the sport is “clinically dead”.

Still there was Iraq, again, in the semifinals … though South Korea dominated the game and won 2-0, with Iraqi players openly arguing with each other as the game wound down.

Even after the upheaval of IS, the Iraq team still has players from Iraq’s three major sectarian groups, the Sunnis, the Shias and the Kurds, but also from smaller groups, including Turkmen and Assyrians — and even one Christian.

For those guys, just joining the national team is a political act that could cost them their lives.

It would have been a nice story had the Iraqis been able to advance, but getting to the semis was a minor miracle, given that Iraq’s domestic league is a shell of its former self — to attend a match is to take your life in your hands.

The national team has not been able to play a competitive match at home in more than a decade, for fear of violence.

Those of us who live in (or hail from) stable countries sometimes forget what a gift it is just to be able to go see a ballgame in your city.

Or to watch your national team play — without the risk of being executed for it.