"They're not the national team, they're the Islamic government's team." That line, from an Iranian-American ahead of Iran's World Cup group stage game in Los Angeles, tells you everything about what awaits Team Melli when they walk out at SoFi Stadium.
Organiser Sid Mohasseb is chartering buses from across California. He's hoping for 40,000 to 50,000 protesters ringing the stadium. The coalition he represents hasn't slept easy since Tehran violently suppressed a popular uprising in January — a crackdown that left, by some estimates, thousands dead.
Los Angeles is the largest Iranian diaspora city outside Iran itself — "Tehrangeles", as it's long been known. A substantial portion of that population has been bitterly opposed to the Islamic Republic since it overthrew the Shah in 1979. The World Cup just handed them a global stage.
Inside the stadium is where it gets complicated
Protests outside SoFi are entirely legal. What happens inside is a different question. FIFA prohibits political accessories within stadiums — and the old Lion and Sun flag, symbol of pre-revolution Iran, very much qualifies. Several ticket-holding protesters told AFP they've printed it onto T-shirts, worn under other clothing, ready to strip off once they're through the gates.
"What can FIFA really do about this?" asked Iman Foroutan, a 68-year-old activist from Orange County. "Are they going to stop the game and kick everybody out? I'm not sure that would be very practical."
He has a point. Iranian Sports Minister Ahmad Donyamali has warned that team officials would be duty-bound to halt the match if the rules aren't respected. Whether FIFA actually enforces that is another matter entirely — they didn't exactly cover themselves in consistency at Qatar 2022, when the anthem was loudly booed just months after the Mahsa Amini protests.
The players are caught in the middle
None of this backdrop has been easy. The US and Israel launched a war against Iran in late February — making this the first time a World Cup host nation has been at war with a qualifying country. Iran's planned training camp in Tucson was cancelled at the last minute; they've set up in Tijuana instead. More than a dozen staff members have been denied US visas.
Ali Eslami, an Iranian-American who lives in Tijuana, sums up the mood bluntly: "I feel bad for the players because they shouldn't be really playing in that kind of atmosphere. If I were in that situation, honestly, I couldn't function."
The anthem alone could detonate the atmosphere before a ball is kicked. Any betting line that assumes Iran will perform to their potential in these group games needs to factor in the psychological weight of what surrounds them. Playing football under these conditions, in this city, before this crowd, is not a normal assignment.
"Every Iranian knows it," Eslami added. "The team knows it too."
