For ninety minutes and a few more, football united a divided nation. Either side of those nervous yet exciting passages, fans rolled out and waved two variants of the national flag, the pre and post revolutionary ones; some held their fists on the pounding chest when the tuneful national anthem Ei Iran thrummed in the arena; some booed and raised slogans. Football was once Iran’s balm and beat, now it’s a symbol of the conflicts that had clutched the country. The dual world of cheering and booing resumed after the goalless draw.
How could the fans, regardless of their affiliations, whether they perceive players as regime-men or eleven proud footballers, not celebrate a game they nearly won and etched a glorious moment for their country. Belgium played nearly a quarter of the game with 10 men, after Nathan Ngoy was jettisoned for pulling Mehdi Taremi’s shirt when he was through on goal, from a clumsy touch by the young defender. Iran had a sumptuous goal ruled off-side, their repelling of Belgium’s gilded forwards was a defensive masterclass.
If only their forwards read each other’s minds. Their playing patterns in the offensive half were ineloquent, often caught in a dilemma whether to shoot or pass, eventually doing neither and getting dispossessed.
Maybe, the unusual practice of flying in and out of the country before and after the games was stressing them. FIFA boss Gianni Infantino had promised after the first game that he would do what he could, but his promise remained just another promise. A broken promise. They had to fly to Los Angeles on Saturday and would fly out after the game.
Another narrative in the fraught US-Iran diplomacy broke out when US homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin told Fox News on Saturday that somebody with “direct ties” with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps attempted to enter the United States with the Iranian football team but was not allowed to board the flight on Saturday.
Football was once Iran’s balm and beat, now it’s a symbol of the conflicts that had clutched the country.
The unidentified person, reportedly, was Mehdi Taj, the federation’s president, among the 15 officials of the Iran federation the US had denied visa. Iran’s football federation immediately issued a rejoinder that Mullin’s accusations were “fabricated with the aim of damaging the reputation of Iranian football and disrupting the national team’s participation”
The political dust settled when the game took over. Every nearly moment of Iran produced a collective sigh of angst—Iran’s fans had clearly outnumbered the Belgium counterparts, whose percussion beats were drowned the guttural fury of Iranians. It was, as though, the game melted their differences, even if briefly. All of them sighed when their delightful goal was called off-side. Cruelly so. If only there was leniency for aesthetics.
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The goal was like a lyric written by their virtuosic poets, Rumi or Omar Khayyam. Just before the hydration break, Iran received a free kick for a hand ball 25 yards away from the impenetrable Thibault Courtois’ perch. Ehsan Hajidsafi, exuding an intimidating intensity, seemed as though he planned to curl the ball over the wall, running and lowering his body to get the whip on the ball. Instead, he coaxed a pass that was more a brushstroke than a sledgehammer down the side of the wall. The gentle stroke razed the wall down.
The talisman Taremi trapped the ball, turned past the stupefied Belgians and finessed a shot past Courtois. The stands exploded, flags of all shades and messages proudly draped the stands. It seemed as though it were the moment that dissolved the nation’s recent travails, a blessing. Instead, it was the moment that broke the Iranian hearts. They could have been together in joy, but here they were together in tragedy. VAR checks showed that Taremi was marginally off-side (just his backside!) He stood inconsolably, with his hands on head.
It would remain a regret for years, on a day they displayed their rearguard resilience. The five-man backline, pouncing like a defensive wave, blocked out all direct routes to their goal. Leandro Trossard and Alexis Saelemaekers were hit dead ends like a google map gone bonkers. Romelu Lukaku was left isolated, and whenever he got the ball, his first touch, a storied weakness of his, let him down. It was down to Kevin de Bruyne’s improvisations to unlock the maze. And he only consistently found cracks, even if they were nano-sized, that shook the wall. The wall neutralised, the boulder remained, the goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand, his iron fists and malleable joints keeping the goalmouth shut.
The fans chanted his name, and he warmly applauded them. But soon after the Iran fans spilled out of the stands, they started beating their drums, stood on the flag and shouted anti-regime chants, as several videos that went viral show. A protester, unnamed, says: “We are not here to support the team chosen by our regime. We are here to show our support for the oppressed people of Iran, not the players.” Ironically, the same Iran’s coach Amir Ghalenoei used when describing his players’ plight, “the most oppressed team in the World Cup.” But for 90 minutes, it was just one Iran, those eleven men on the field.
