Los Angeles: The Iranian footballers gave a good account of themselves in their politically-charged FIFA World Cup opener, coming back twice to hold New Zealand 2-2 in Los Angeles.
But what left a bitter taste in the mouth was the treatment the team received from co-hosts USA.
Iran’s coach Amir Ghalenoei said the team was ordered to leave the US and return to its training base in Mexico only a few hours after the final whistle was blown on Monday night (Los Angeles time).
With the match ending around 9 pm (local time), the Iranian team had planned to spend the night in California to maximise the normal recovery process after its opening game, before flying back to their Mexican base and again returning to Los Angeles five days later for the next game against Belgium.
But the team was told after the match that everyone must immediately get on a plane for the trip back to Mexico’s Tijuana.
The coach didn’t specify who had ordered the Iranians to leave earlier than planned.
“They didn’t even give us time to recover,” Ghalenoei said through an interpreter. “After the game, they said to us, ‘You have to leave immediately.’ It’s very important for us to have time for recovery, (but) we are asked to get on a plane and return to our camp in Tijuana, and we are really troubled by that.”
“We don’t know why they are returning us, to be honest. I think it’s very strange. It seems like others are doing the planning for us. The decision-making for us is being made elsewhere. We were supposed to come two nights before the game, and we were supposed to stay tonight to recover and return tomorrow at lunchtime,” Ghalenoei said.
“I think our team is perhaps the most oppressed in the World Cup,” he lamented.
Since the US and Israel attacked Tehran on February 28, Tehran’s participation in the World Cup – beng co-hosted by the US, Mexico and Canada – hung by a thread.
However, Iran ultimately decided to compete even after FIFA turned down a request to move its three group-stage matches out of the US.
The Iranian squad was initially scheduled to be based in the US, in Tucson, Arizona, for the duration of the tournament. However, after facing visa complications, Iran decided to relocate to Mexico’s Tijuana.
Now that the US and Iran have agreed to a peace agreement, Iran would have expected better behaviour in Donald Trump’s land.
Alas, they were left disappointed in the first of at least three trips to the US, though most Iranian fans at the stadium backed their team passionately even as some others held up pre-revolutionary flags — the lion‑and‑sun emblem used before 1979 – to protest against the current regime in Tehran.
Iran face Belgium in Los Angeles on June 22 and Egypt in Seattle on June 27.
