Why Iran’s World Cup Run Left Its Fanbase Deeply Divided

Iran’s path to the World Cup has been punishingly difficult, with the opening phase shaped as much by conflict as by football. For long stretches, the squad travelled by bus, watching from the road as signs of the war affecting their country unfolded around them.

Domestic football in Iran has been on hold since February following US and Israeli air strikes, leaving many of the team’s home-based players seriously short of match fitness. Last month, the squad embarked on a 2,000-mile trip to a training camp in Antalya on Turkey’s southern coast, beginning overland because Iranian airspace was considered too dangerous. They have remained away from home ever since.

The camp in Turkey has focused heavily on rebuilding conditioning for players who had gone seven weeks without competitive action. Head coach Amir Ghalenoei, typically understated in his assessment, admitted that only around a quarter of the team’s physical deficit could realistically be addressed in that period. A clearer picture is expected when Iran face New Zealand in the early hours of Tuesday.

Yet fitness work and gym sessions can do little to ease the deeper emotional strain carried by the squad. Iran remains in mourning after thousands were killed during January’s anti-government protests and the war that followed, launched by the US and Israel. Among the dead were 120 children, killed when an American strike mistakenly hit their school.

The turmoil has also exposed divisions inside the camp. Tensions have emerged between players who have expressed sympathy for the protesters and others who have stayed silent, a reflection of the tight control the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are said to exert over the Iranian Football Association.

Speaking out, or even appearing to step out of line, carries consequences. Star forward Sardar Azmoun has been left out of the tournament over what was viewed as an “act of disloyalty” toward the government. The issue stemmed from images he shared of himself shaking hands with the sheikhs of Dubai and Abu Dhabi after leaving Bayer Leverkusen to sign for a club in the UAE.

Iran Turns to Overseas Talent Amid Striker Shortage 

That forced the coaching team into strenuous and rather comical efforts to locate a replacement striker, before stumbling on a German-born Belgian league player whose aunt happens to be a glamorous Iranian TV star.

Dennis Eckert, a former Germany under-19 player who turns out for Standard Liege, didn’t have a passport when approached by the Iranian FA. Neither did his father, who is half Iranian and whose own Iranian father has passed away. The aunt, Anahita Dargahi, stepped in as an intermediary in Tehran when wheels of bureaucracy were gumming up.

Eckert’s father travelled to Iran for a DNA test which helped secure him a passport and paved the way to his 29-year-old son getting one of his own and becoming eligible. He will take his aunt’s name – becoming Dennis Dargahi – for the tournament.

‘I didn’t think it would happen,’ Eckert told the Gol Bezan podcast. ‘We tried to figure it out and then contact with the FA went away. I’m not sure that it was easy to make it happen.’ The forward, who doesn’t speak Farsi, told the podcast that he wants to try.

Though all but four of the World Cup squad are Iran-based, there is enough English spoken in the squad for Eckert to comprehend the tactical masterplan for Iran, who are in a group with New Zealand, Egypt and Belgium.

It might not be all that nuanced. Ghalenoei, the most successful Iranian club manager of all time, has a reputation for going long, though the absence of 6ft 1in Azmoun will be an impediment, even though the talismanic forward Mehdi Taremi is still in the picture. This is the oldest Iranian squad ever fielded and one of the tournament’s most senior – with an average age of 29.8 and only one young player in its ranks.

The failure to bring through a new generation matching up to the far stronger 1978 squad who drew 1-1 with Scotland in Argentina reflects the lumpen way the state-influenced Iranian FA oversee things. 

The standard of stadiums and training facilities is poor. Many young players must join military-affiliated clubs at a key stage in their development, because of Iran’s compulsory national service. Blooding young players is not a part of the culture.

A Divided Diaspora Wrestles With National Identity 

But the squad certainly have external motivating factors. The Iranians could barely have been afforded less respect by the US and FIFA – forced to leave a California training base because it was deemed too close to the United States camp, then told that they must enter and leave the USA within the day on the three occasions they travel to the US for group stage games. Iranian fans have been refused visas to travel.

The team will play twice in Los Angeles – home to the world’s largest Iranian diaspora, much of which is centred on the so-called ‘Tehrangeles’ district of Westwood. But even in that community there is division about whether or not to support a team seen as representative of a repressive and detested regime.

Plenty see the team’s presence as a chance to celebrate their homeland and its culture. The Meymuni café, a social hub for the Tehrangelese community, will be staging Watch Party events for Iran’s games, laying on the modern Persian cuisine it is building a reputation for. 

‘During these difficult times at home, we’ve tried to be focal point for the diaspora,’ says the café’s founder, Shaheen Ferdowsi. ‘People might have different opinions about how to support the team but our view is that at difficult times, you come together – and this is such a time.’

At the nearby Persian Square, Mohammad Karimi feels differently. ‘The team represents a detested regime and I won’t recognise them,’ he says. ‘I won’t give the regime the satisfaction.’ There were anti-regime protests at the USA’s opening match against Paraguay.

But Soraya Sebghati, another member of the community, also sees Iran’s games in LA as an opportunity to bind the diaspora together now. ‘The team is a unifier,’ she says. ‘There’s an emotional part to it which brings every ethnic group in our community together. There’s a passion about the World Cup. People will look at the team, playing in LA, and think: “That’s us. They are our people.”’

There is less anti-Trump sentiment than you would imagine in ‘Tehrangeles’, though many abhor a US policy which has destroyed the old country.

Iran’s opponents believe the large Iranian community will make a difference. New Zealand manager Darren Bazeley expects 50,000 Iranians to pour into the Los Angeles Stadium when the teams meet, making the Kiwis very much the away team.

Ghalenoei and Iran striker Mehdi Taremi give a press conference in Los Angeles on Sunday ahead of their opening World Cup match.

Iran Faces Intense Scrutiny Beyond the Pitch 

There will be public protest and the spotlight will fall on the Iranians wherever they go. Their third game, against Egypt in Seattle, has been designated the ‘LGBTQ+ celebration game’, by local organisers though same-gender relations can carry the death penalty in Iran and Egyptian laws are often used to prosecute LGBTQ+ people. Expect Ghalenoei to brush away any questions of a non-footballing nature. He is no orator.

No team here has had to deal with as much extraneous noise as Iran. Their supporters just hope that the bumps in the road and the public indignities will inspire them, because there is a very real prospect of them meeting the USA if they reach the round of 32. 

How sweet it would be to beat them. ‘Yes,’ a deadpan Ghalenoei said of that potential outcome. ‘We embrace the possibility.’