The final whistle had not been blown when Iran was told to leave. Tomorrow is not as planned. now 11pm flight from Los Angeles International. No recovery sessions, no overnight stays. Return to Mexico.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino came to the dressing room after the match. He promised to help, Iran captain Mehdi Taremi said. A few hours later they were on the plane.
“They didn’t even give us time to recover,” manager Amir Galenoi said. Our team is the most suppressed in the World Cup. Federation is absent here. Our media is not here. Our management team, many of them are not here.”
Taremi called it simply a disaster. “Of course, he wants to try to help us, but it’s also about other things, everyone knows that. I don’t need to mention it, because you know where we are … everything is like a disaster for us. It’s not right, but we don’t make excuses. We’re just looking forward to the next two games to hope and make our supporters happy.”
This is how Iran’s World Cup night ended in Los Angeles. Here’s how it all started.
Hours before kickoff, the United States and Iran signed a peace accord. Inside the arena, some Iranian fans waved a pre-revolutionary flag and played their own national anthem. “This is not our team,” they shouted.
Los Angeles has the largest Iranian community outside of Iran. They call the stretch of Westwood Boulevard where saffron ice cream parlors and Persian bookstores and kabob shops cluster together “Tehranjeel.” On Monday, it emptied out early. Everyone was going to the same place.
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Outside the stadium in Inglewood, hundreds of protesters had gathered since early morning. They wore red, white and green, carried Iranian flags and displayed photos of athletes killed by the regime. Security gave nearly a dozen spectators the option of leaving their lion and sun flags outside or confiscating them. FIFA banned the pre-revolution symbol as too political for a World Cup venue.
As reported by Yahoo Sports, one woman asked her friends before getting in line: “Should I put it under my shirt?” It ended up in the balled fist of a Los Angeles Sheriff’s deputy. When security asked a man holding a star-spangled banner to unfurl it, he said in apparent disbelief: “That’s the American flag, man!” Mehdi Estiri asked the Lion and Sun T-shirt to be covered with a sweatshirt while his wife and son pulled the inside out, finally getting it done. “This is the real flag of my country,” he said. “For the last 47 years, they have held my country hostage under a false flag.”
It was the first World Cup match played by a country at war with the host nation. The team’s training base was moved from Arizona to Tijuana. 11 members of the delegation were denied US visas. On Sunday, their bus took two hours to travel the fifteen minutes from the airport to the hotel. Many players had not kicked a ball competitively since February, after the domestic league was suspended amid US and Israeli airstrikes.
When the teams finally came out, the stadium was ready for all. Dozens of fans managed to retrieve their lion and sun flags despite the best efforts of security. They waved as the current Iranian flag was raised, as the national anthem played and New Zealand scored a goal. But the crowd of over 70,000 chanted “Ir-run! Ir-run!” This was the slogan. When the national anthem started, there was a sensation. Others turned away. In the stadium, at that moment, there was every version of what it means to be Iranian in 2026 – sorrow, pride, anger, love, the refusal to choose between them.
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And then they played. 2-2 draw against New Zealand, twice coming from behind, breathless and down to the last. Elia recently scored both of New Zealand’s goals. One of Iran’s many players, Ramin Rezaian, who has not kicked the ball competitively since February, reacted quickly to a blocked shot to equalize first. Mohammad Mohebi moved to second place. Both teams made a late push for the title. None found.
An Iranian American told Al Jazeera before the match: “Where you feel helpless and you don’t have the power to make a difference where it really matters, you look for any other places where you can put yourself. And it happens that the FIFA game is happening.”
That’s how it happened. And yet nothing about Monday night in Inglewood felt accidental.