A Guest for Forty Eight Hours

After months of uncertainty, the Iranian team reaches the United States, from exile in Tijuana, with a visa for less than two days and the obligation to return after every match. For the first time in World Cup history, the host nation is at war with a participant!

Shortly before four o’clock on Sunday, a representative of FIFA apologized, saying that the Iranian team had been delayed, telling journalists at SoFi Stadium near Los Angeles who had come for what would otherwise have been an insignificant pre match press conference. But there was nothing insignificant about it. For months uncertainty had hung over Iran’s participation in the World Cup, ever since the American Israeli strikes on the country, and when the captain and head coach finally stepped before the press, a major hurdle had been crossed. Iran had made it into the United States and opens against New Zealand on Monday.

Under an extreme police presence, Team Iran was escorted to the Westdrift team hotel in Manhattan Beach.

The squad had arrived at Los Angeles airport after a warm farewell in Tijuana, Mexico, where it had been exiled after its Arizona base camp was canceled weeks before the tournament. Several Iranian officials, including the president of the national federation, remained behind because they were denied entry. The players’ visas allow them less than forty eight hours on American soil and require them to return to Mexico after every match.

Arrival at the stadium for match preparations against New Zealand

It is one of the greatest crises in the nearly one hundred year history of the tournament, the first time that a host nation has stood in open war with a participant. Just hours after the press conference, Washington and Tehran announced an agreement that could ultimately bring the war, which began in February with the American Israeli strikes, to an end.

See also our article: A Peace No One Has Signed Yet

The celebration at the departure from Mexico, a co host, found no confirmation in Los Angeles, home to one of the largest Iranian communities abroad and a center of fierce opposition to the government in Tehran. A small group shouted slogans against the team as its bus entered the hotel, and larger protests are expected on match day. This tension clouds the joy and undermines the message of FIFA and of its people, which belongs to football and to peace, said Mehdi Taremi, the star and captain. This World Cup could have offered a better atmosphere, and he hoped things would improve in the future for all fans, regardless of whom they supported.

The team, one of the first to qualify, has been shaken by various restrictions imposed by organizers and the American government. In addition to delayed visas and changed training schedules, a plan to distribute tickets to Iranian fans was abandoned because ticket sales, according to FIFA, would violate American sanctions. In Tijuana, during the final training session on Saturday, the team tried to show unity and formed a circle that included those officials who had been barred from crossing the border for the three matches.

Inside Inglewood Stadium, the atmosphere is expected to be tense. Organizers of protests against the Iranian government expect thousands outside the gates, while others plan to attend the match and turn it into another stage for protest. Iranian officials have pressured FIFA to intervene strictly so that spectators bring in nothing recalling the Iran from before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, no flag and no item of clothing.

Against this backdrop, the players were largely kept out of public view. Heavily armed forces from the Mexican government remain constantly stationed outside the hotel and accompany the team to training. Nevertheless, coach Amir Ghalenoei said that professional focus had suffered, and professional football in Iran has been suspended since the beginning of the war. Without question, this will weigh on the spirit of football, he said, and he had worked very hard to keep his players focused. So a team arrives that nobody fully wants, claimed by its own regime and contained by the host country. It is admitted and yet not welcomed, a guest on call forced back into exile after every match. Football, which was supposed to bring peace, arrived under guard, and scarcely had it arrived before those in power made peace without it.