INGLEWOOD, Calif.— After Iran played to a draw Sunday inside SoFi Stadium, its second of the World Cup in as many matches, the team’s coach began his post-match assessment by backing up six months.
Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Among the many elements of Iranian society thrown into disarray in late February by joint strikes by the U.S.and Israel was the country’s soccer infrastructure.
Its domestic league stopped playing.Iran’s top Iranian soccer official expressed doubt the country would play in this World Cup — co-hosted by the U.S., Mexico and Canada — because of security concerns; when the country ultimately stayed in the 48-team field, the location of its home training base was changed from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana, Mexico.
Several pre-tournament warm-up games were canceled.“I think that we came to World Cup in the worst condition possible,” coach Amir Ghalenoei said through an interpreter.“This is something that I wanted all the world to know.” Despite that lead-up to the tournament, visa issues and what Ghalenoei has described as delays and confusion over how long his team can stay in the U.S.
before and after its matches, Iran will enter its third and final game of group play this week with a chance to move into the knockout round — something it has never done in six previous World Cup appearances, dating back to 1978.“We’ve had two games without losing in the World Cup with the conditions that we’ve had,” Ghalenoei said.
“We had less than 16 hours to get to do training before the game.This is a great achievement and it will be written about in the history of our football, and the future generations will talk about this and what we achieved.” After Iran’s tournament-opening draw against New Zealand last Monday, Ghalenoei called Iran the “most oppressed” team in the field.
He repeated complaints about the travel restrictions during news co...