Hussein Saeed was born on 21 January 1958 in Al Adhamiya, where most of the Al-Ubaid tribe lived, to a conservative Baghdadi family.

The family moved from Al Adhamiya to live in Al-Iskan when his father, who had previously worked as a fabrics merchant, got a job in the Ministry of Construction and Housing.

Hussein Saeed started playing football in the streets before joining Al-Iskan's youth center.

[9] Al-Jamiea became known as Al-Talaba SC ahead of the 1978–79 season after merging with a new club of the same name, which saw Saeed reach the top three goalscorers of the league for the first time, netting six goals for Al-Talaba which made him the second top goalscorer behind Falah Hassan with only one goal and along with his teammate, Haris Mohammed, in 3rd.

[10] The season after, in 1979–80, Al-Talaba finished in 3rd place at 27 points in the league and reached the final of the 1979–80 Iraq FA Cup where they came up against Al-Jaish and lost on penalties 4–2 after a 1–1 draw.

[16] In the 1983–84 season, Saeed came in third in the goalscorers table with 7 goals behind Al-Jaish's Rahim Hameed and Ali Hussein Mahmoud.

Baghdad XI won all of their group matches including a victory over Saeed's club Al-Talaba to qualify for the semi-finals where they thrashed Al-Zawra'a to reach the final.

Saeed returned to the top three goalscorers of the league table in 3rd with 12 goals along with Al-Zawra'a's Saad Abdul-Raheem.

[28] The last season that Saeed played in was the 1989–90 season where he led his team through the first stage at 1st place until the 18th round on 19 January 1990 where he played his last match and scored his last goal with the club, against Al-Zawra'a, before the Iraq Football Association called him up in the last days for the 10th Arabian Gulf Cup and after he scored 10 goals for his team.

[33] After the 4th Arabian Gulf Cup the managerial staff was changed and the Iraq Football Association assigned the Croatian manager, Lenko Grčić, as the new manager of the Iraq national football team, Saeed was called up to the national team, for the first time in his career, at the age of 18.

[2] He continued to play in the youth team because the manager, Miodgard Stankovic, was Yugoslavian, reaching an understanding with Grčić.

Iraq achieved the 1977 AFC Youth Championship where Saeed scored the winning goal in the final, from a diving header in the 90th minute, against Iran in a 4–3 victory in Tehran.

[34] Saeed was also the top goalscorer of this edition with 9 goals,[35] scoring his first national hat-trick against Afghanistan in Iraq's 5–1 win.

[40] On 21 February 1978, Saeed scored his first hat-trick with the senior national team in a friendly match against Algeria at the Al-Shaab Stadium.

[43] Saeed's first appearance in the Arabian Gulf Cup was in the 1979 edition in Baghdad under the management of Ammo Baba.

[48] Saeed started in Iraq's five matches of the 1980 Summer Olympics qualifiers played in Baghdad in which a goal against Jordan and two more against South Yemen.

[52] Saeed participated in the 6th Arabian Gulf Cup in Abu Dhabi in 1982, scoring a total of five goals in the tournament: one against Oman, two against Bahrain, one against Saudi Arabia, and a last one against the UAE.

[55] Iraq achieved their second Arabian Gulf Cup in the 1984 edition in Muscat, with Ammo Baba as the team's manager.

[66] When the 1986 FIFA World Cup was about to start, there were some speculations about Saeed not being in Iraq's squad, due to his injury, but he joined the team in the last moments.

[68] After the match, Iraq's head coach, Evaristo de Macedo, removed Saeed from the squad, due to his prior injury, and returned him to Baghdad.

[23] After their disappointing run in the World Cup, Saeed rejoined the team in the 1986 Asian Games where he scored a goal against Oman in Iraq's opening match which ended 4–0 and another one against the UAE in the 2–1 defeat.

[73] Iraq withdrew from the tournament after the game with the UAE, because of the refereeing,[74] which was Saeed's last match in his football career before he decided to retire at the age of 32 in the same year.

[6] After he left the office of vice president of Al-Talaba in 1992, the club finished the 1992–93 as winners of the league and the 2nd Umm al-Ma'arik Championship and the runners-up of the 1992–93 Iraq FA Cup.

[78][79] As Saeed was the vice president of the Iraq Football Association, which was headed by Uday Hussein, in the 1990s, there were many controversies about him being a Ba'athist and a Saddamist.

[85] Documents were put on the internet by some news agencies that suggest that Saeed, Najeh Humoud and Moayad Al-Badri worked for the Iraqi Intelligence Service in 2002 by gathering information on their targets.

The documents included Saeed gathering information about Al-Badri when he was staying in Saudi Arabia before joining them himself.

They also show the approval of the Personal Secretary of Former President Saddam Hussein, Abid Hamid Mahmud, of paying Saeed $50,000 after completing his mission and him signing on receiving $25,000.