‘Part of our culture’: Iran defying hardships and dreaming of first World Cup knockout round appearance

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — After Iran played to a draw Sunday inside SoFi Stadium, its second of the World Cup in as many matches, the team’s coach began his post-match assessment by backing up six months.

Among the many elements of Iranian society thrown into disarray in late February by joint strikes by the U.S. and Israel was the country’s soccer infrastructure. Its domestic league stopped playing. Iran’s top Iranian soccer official expressed doubt the country would play in this World Cup — co-hosted by the U.S., Mexico and Canada — because of security concerns; when the country ultimately stayed in the 48-team field, the location of its home training base was changed from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana, Mexico. Several pre-tournament warm-up games were canceled.

“I think that we came to World Cup in the worst condition possible,” coach Amir Ghalenoei said through an interpreter. “This is something that I wanted all the world to know.”

Despite that lead-up to the tournament, visa issues and what Ghalenoei has described as delays and confusion over how long his team can stay in the U.S. before and after its matches, Iran will enter its third and final game of group play this week with a chance to move into the knockout round — something it has never done in six previous World Cup appearances, dating back to 1978.

“We’ve had two games without losing in the World Cup with the conditions that we’ve had,” Ghalenoei said. “We had less than 16 hours to get to do training before the game. This is a great achievement and it will be written about in the history of our football, and the future generations will talk about this and what we achieved.”

After Iran’s tournament-opening draw against New Zealand last Monday, Ghalenoei called Iran the “most oppressed” team in the field. He repeated complaints about the travel restrictions during news conferences before and after the match this weekend. Staff members, including the president of Iran’s soccer federation and its press officers, still were not allowed into the U.S. Iran had not been allowed to arrive in Southern California until Saturday despite its attempt to come a day earlier.

“This is part of our culture: In a difficult situation, we perform better,” Iranian midfielder Alireza Jahanbakhsh said. “I think that united us even more. And that’s one of the things that I think we’ve shown today.”

Belgium entered Sunday ranked 10th in FIFA’s world rankings, 12 spots higher than Iran. In the opening minutes, a crunching collision in front of the goal by Belgium’s Romelu Lukaku and Iranian goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand left the goalkeeper writhing on the grass for several minutes, holding his face. But Beiranvand proceeded to save seven shots, including a stunning one-handed stop while laying on the ground in the second half. Belgian coach Rudi Garcia called Beiranvand the “man of the match.”

Iran appeared to score in the 26th minute off a free kick only for the goal to be disallowed after a video review determined scorer Mehdi Taremi was offside. Iran gained a one-man advantage in the 67th minute when a red card reduced Belgium to 10 men, but it still could not score.

Two hours after the game ended, Iran was scheduled to return to Mexico due to travel restrictions that have seen the team limited to arriving in the U.S. the day before each match and returning to Mexico soon after its conclusion.

Ghalenoei has criticized the lack of recovery time his team has received while commuting.

That arrangement could change for Iran’s third and final group-stage matchup Friday in Seattle against Egypt. Speaking at a pre-match news conference Saturday, Ghalenoei suggested Iran had been cleared to arrive in Washington two days early.

“To be honest, we don’t ask for much; we just ask for the same procedures for all the other 47 teams,” Jahanbakhsh said. “So hopefully we can bring everyone who is involved in helping with us. I hope we can go as soon as possible to adapt to the situation and the city.”

Amir Ghalenoei looks off while standing on the soccer field inside of a stadium — Amir Ghalenoei, head coach of Iran, looks on before his team’s match Sunday against Belgium at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif.Alex Livesey / FIFA via Getty Images

Ghalenoei said Saturday that he was “grateful” in one way for treatment he characterized unfair.

“This means that it was proven how much these behaviors have harmed our nation,” he said. “If we had spent billions of dollars, we would not have been able to convey the legitimacy of our country and our nation to the world, but these behaviors showed how oppressed a country we are. But I hope that the world will always be peaceful and calm and that these behaviors will not be institutionalized in the next World Cup.”

Compared to Iran’s first World Cup match last week, the atmosphere surrounding Sunday’s kickoff featured fewer demonstrations outside of the stadium against Iran’s government. Several fans still snuck in the country’s pre-revolution flag featuring a lion and sun after FIFA prohibiting its presence inside stadiums during the World Cup under its rule that bans materials deemed “of a political, offensive and/or discriminatory nature.”

Los Angeles is home to the largest diaspora of Iranians in the U.S., which has meant that for all of the team’s difficulties reaching the stadium, once inside it has felt like a de facto home game, a sea of white jerseys from different eras, trimmed in red and green.

Some Iranians have said they cannot cheer for the team in the World Cup because they see it as an extension of a ruling government they oppose; others have said they separated their disdain for the government from interest in seeing Iran advance in the world’s most-watched sporting tournament.

“Sixteen hours [in the U.S.], two flights and a heavy game, I don’t think any team in the world could have really sustained with such conditions and play like this,” Ghalenoei said. “The conditions have been extremely hard for us and our players are really giving everything. They are playing with their heart. The future generations will remember them.”

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