Iran’s double defeat with dignity at the World Cup (1-0)

BarcelonaSome say football is just a game. But one only had to look at the faces of the Iranian players before the game against the United States to understand that the reality is much more complicated. If the politicians are waiting for the party, it is no longer a game. If millions of people too, even less. Some Iranian soccer players sang the anthem without moving their lips, with faces of pain, forced by authorities who would have threatened them with reprisals against their relatives if they did not sing the official anthem of the Islamic Republic, adopted in 1988 when Khomeini died. Everything is politics; also sport.

And the duel between the United States and Iran, won on the grass by the Americans (1-0), who thus qualify for the round of 16 and leave the Iranians heartbroken, was so conditioned by politics that when the anthems started to play, more than one remembered that it was also necessary to talk about tactics and goals. The two states, enemies since the rise to power in 1978 of the regime of the Ayatollahs, with crises such as the hostage crisis in 1979 or the last one regarding the Iranian nuclear program, live in confrontation. But at the same time, Iran has a rift within it, caused by protesters demanding more freedom, more democracy and more rights for women. Many Iranian players were refusing to sing the anthem during the World Cup in Qatar in support of these protesters – more than 400 of them would have died due to police repression – but the authorities would have pressured them to achieve the image of them singing it. They didn’t quite get it. The anthem, in fact, was booed by many Iranians present in the camp demanding more freedom, some holding the Iranian flag with a hole in the middle: they had removed the Islamist shield.

The atmosphere between the fans of the two countries, however, was just right. Little tension, as if they understood that football can be a party. Now, they all suffered because of what happened on the lawn. Iran needed a draw to make it to the round of 16, but the Americans needed a win. And they did it thanks to a goal before the break from Pulisic, who was injured in action. In the second half, Iran tried with no luck and still have never reached the round of 16. And the Americans, by the way, beat the Iranians for the first time, since in the previous official duel between the two, at the 1998 World Cup, the Asians won 2-1. That 1998, in what is known as “the mother of all matches”, the two teams took a picture together. This was not the case this time, although the Valencian Mateu Lahoz, referee of the match, managed to get a photograph with the two captains and knew how to keep control of the situation, forcing the players who were angry with each other to shake hands, as if they were students who had a fight. In fact, it was just an intense football game in the end. It was the politicians and the millions of people who watched it that gave it another value. The athletes, as they did in 1998, did more than a lot of politics, competing with sportsmanship.

In the end, the United States prevailed and will play the Dutch. And Iran suffered a double defeat, sporting and political, as neither fans nor players provided the patriotic image they would have wanted in the palaces of Tehran. The footballers, in fact, lost. But with their heads held high, many of them showing their worth and dignity, when they sang the anthem with their small mouths, angry.