"We welcome them with open arms." That's the message from Tucson, Arizona — a city sitting inside a country currently at war with Iran, preparing to host the Iranian national football team for the FIFA World Cup.
The Kino Sports Complex is FIFA-ready: grass cut to regulation height, hotel rooms locked in, weight rooms, ice baths, and massage tables standing by. Sarah Hanna, the facility's director, is running 12 to 20 meetings a week just to keep the preparations on track. The operation is thorough, professional, and — given the geopolitical backdrop — genuinely surreal.
The War Nobody in Football Wants to Talk About
The US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28. Iran responded with attacks on Israel, US military bases across the Middle East, and energy infrastructure. A ceasefire has technically been in place for a month, but Iran has effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz and the US has imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports. Calling it "resolved" would be a stretch.
FIFA's position is firm: Iran participates as planned. Their Group G schedule has them facing New Zealand on June 15 in Los Angeles, Belgium on June 21 in the same city, and Egypt on June 24 in Seattle. Tucson is set to receive the squad two weeks before that opener.
But the uncertainty is real. The president of Iran's football federation confirmed participation only on Friday — and only with a list of conditions attached, covering visas and the treatment of staff. And in March, Trump posted that while the team was "welcome," it might not be "appropriate" for them to attend "for their own life and safety." That's not a visa complication. That's a sitting US president implying his country might not be safe for a World Cup participant.
What Tucson Actually Thinks
Locals aren't buying the hostility narrative. Jon Pearlman, president of FC Tucson, called Trump's social media habits "bombastic" and predicted the government would do the opposite of making Iran feel unwelcome. Rob McLane, a local indoor footballer, put it more plainly: "I hope that they still feel welcome here. Even though we're doing what we're doing, which is ridiculous."
Tucson is a majority-Democratic city of 540,000 people. It's multicultural, it leans cosmopolitan, and it appears genuinely enthusiastic about hosting a team whose government is actively in conflict with its own. That disconnect between federal politics and local reality is one of the more quietly fascinating subplots of this tournament.
From a betting standpoint, Iran's group odds are already priced around their footballing ability — but any late withdrawal or disrupted preparation window would scramble those markets fast. A squad arriving under diplomatic stress, after a fractured build-up, is not the same team that qualified.
"As far as we're concerned, it's 100 percent on, and it's never been off," Hanna said. The grass is cut. The rooms are booked. FIFA hasn't blinked. Whether Team Melli actually lands in Tucson next month is the one thing nobody in Arizona can control.
