Iran’s fractured – Iran’s World Cup build-up has been shaped as much by war and instability as by football: a domestic league suspended since February, a difficult 2,000-mile bus-and-camp trek to Antalya in Turkey, fitness that Ghalenoei says is only 25% catch-up, and a squad fr
For Iran, the World Cup doesn’t start with the whistle. It starts on a bus—again and again—under a sky that officials say is too unsafe to fly through. It starts with roads that stretch across a country trying to keep playing while war ripples through daily life.
Last month, the squad finally made a 2,000-mile journey to a training camp at Antalya, on the southern tip of Turkey. They hadn’t been able to go home since. Airspace was deemed unsafe, so the route turned unpredictable, forcing long travel before the work could even begin.
That work is still incomplete. Iran’s domestic football league has been suspended since February because of US and Israeli air strikes. leaving many home-based players way short of fitness. In Antalya. Amir Ghalenoei—described as the most successful Iranian club manager of all time—has been trying to rebuild physical readiness with gym sessions and hard repetition. Even he puts a number on the gap: only 25 per cent of the physical “shortfall” can be made up in the time available. How much is left to fix will be measured soon enough. with Iran set to play New Zealand in the early hours of Tuesday.
The training doesn’t come close to solving what is harder to measure. Iran is still in mourning after thousands were killed in January’s anti-Government protests and the subsequent war initiated by the US and Israel. The source of the grief is not abstract: it included 120 children killed when their school was inadvertently bombed by the Americans.
Those events have followed the team into its dressing room. A fracture has emerged inside the squad—between players who have shown sympathy for the protestors and those whose reluctance to speak out reflects the iron grip of the despotic Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the Iranian FA. Dissidence, the article notes, carries a cost.
Sardar Azmoun, Iran’s top striker, has been excluded from the tournament because of a perceived “act of disloyalty” to the government. His “crime” was to post images of himself shaking hands with the Sheikhs of Dubai and Abu Dhabi after joining a UAE club from Bayer Leverkusen.
The hole in Iran’s attack immediately becomes a logistical problem—and then a deeply human one. The coaching team launched strenuous, rather comical efforts to locate a replacement striker. The scramble didn’t stay on the pitch.
It ended with Dennis Eckert, a former Germany under-19 player who turns out for Standard Liege, a German-born Belgian league player. But the first hurdle was paperwork. When approached by the Iranian FA, Eckert didn’t have a passport. Neither did his father, whose own Iranian father has passed away.
An aunt stepped in as the bridge between football and bureaucracy. Eckert’s aunt, Anahita Dargahi, acted as an intermediary in Tehran when the wheels of administration were gumming up. Then the solution turned into DNA. Eckert’s father travelled to Iran for a DNA test that helped secure a passport—paving the way for the 29-year-old son to receive one of his own and become eligible for the tournament.
For the World Cup, Eckert will take his aunt’s name, becoming Dennis Dargahi. Eckert later spoke to the Gol Bezan podcast and said: “I didn’t think it would happen. We tried to figure it out and then contact with the FA went away. I’m not sure that it was easy to make it happen.” The forward. who doesn’t speak Farsi. also told the podcast that he wants to “try.”.
With the squad nearly all Iran-based—only four are not—there is enough English spoken for the team’s tactical masterplan to land. Iran’s group includes New Zealand, Egypt and Belgium. There may be little space for subtlety, though. The absence of 6ft 1in Azmoun will be an impediment, even if talismanic forward Mehdi Taremi remains in the picture.
This is also the oldest Iranian squad ever fielded. Its average age is 29.8. and it is one of the tournament’s most senior. with only one young player in the ranks. The picture around development is bleak: stadiums and training facilities are described as poor. and many young players are pushed into military-affiliated clubs at a key stage because of Iran’s compulsory national service. Blooding young players “is not a part of the culture. ” and the failure to bring through a new generation matching up to the far stronger 1978 squad—who drew 1-1 with Scotland in Argentina—is framed as part of how things have been run under a state-influenced Iranian FA.
On the surface, the schedule and the opponent bring their own pressure. But for Iran, external noise has been relentless, and it has consequences for people trying to represent their country.
The Iranians were forced to leave a California training base because it was deemed too close to the United States camp. They were then told they must enter and leave the USA within the day on three occasions when they travel for group stage games. Iranian fans have been refused visas to travel.
The team will still play twice in Los Angeles. It is a matchday reality wrapped in identity politics, because Los Angeles houses the world’s largest Iranian diaspora, centered heavily on Westwood’s so-called “Tehrangeles” district.
Even there, support is not a simple choice.
At the Meymuni café, a social hub for the Tehrangelese community, watch parties are planned for Iran’s games. The café will lay on modern Persian cuisine and try to turn football into a homecoming. Shaheen Ferdowsi. the founder. said: “During these difficult times at home. we’ve tried to be focal point for the diaspora.” He added: “People might have different opinions about how to support the team but our view is that at difficult times. you come together – and this is such a time.”.
At Persian Square, Mohammad Karimi sees it differently. He said: “The team represents a detested regime and I won’t recognise them.” Karimi continued: “I won’t give the regime the satisfaction.”
Soraya Sebghati offers a third view—less about legitimacy, more about cohesion. She said: “The team is a unifier.” Sebghati described an emotional effect that “brings every ethnic group in our community together. ” and said there is a passion about the World Cup. In her words, people will look at the team playing in LA and think: “That’s us. They are our people.”.
Outside Iran, expectations are sharpened by politics. New Zealand manager Darren Bazeley expects 50,000 Iranians to pour into Los Angeles Stadium when the teams meet, making the Kiwis very much the away team in their own opener.
Iran’s campaign is also set up to collide with cultural flashpoints. The third game—against Egypt in Seattle—has been designated the “LGBTQ+ celebration game” by local organisers. The article notes that same-sex relations can carry the death penalty in Iran and that Egyptian laws are often used to prosecute LGBTQ+ people. Ghalenoei is expected to brush away questions of a non-footballing nature, described as someone who is no orator.
The players will carry all of it. An image included in the build-up shows Ghalenoei and Football Federation Vice President Mehdi Mohammad Nabi holding pictures of children allegedly killed in US and Israel strikes in Iran, before a friendly against Costa Rica in Turkey in March.
In Tijuana. Iran’s squad were cheered by locals as they left Mexico to head to the US for their first World Cup match against New Zealand in Los Angeles. Now, in the lead-up to the tournament, their supporters aren’t only navigating group-stage football. They’re preparing for public protest and a spotlight that follows wherever Iran go.
Back in the community, that tension sits beside hope. The prospect of meeting the USA if they reach the round of 32 is discussed in the kind of tone that needs no slogans: Iran’s supporters are looking for momentum, for dignity, for something sweet in a journey that has been anything but.
When Amir Ghalenoei was asked deadpan about the possibility of beating the USA, he said: “Yes. We embrace the possibility.”
It is the kind of statement that lands differently depending on where you stand—inside a squad where speaking out can cost you a place. and among a diaspora split over what representing a nation should mean. In Los Angeles, the pitch will matter. But for Iran. the World Cup has already become a test of unity—one that began long before the first matchday kick.
Iran World Cup squad Amir Ghalenoei Sardar Azmoun excluded Dennis Eckert Dennis Dargahi Standard Liege Standard Liege striker DNA test passport Antalya training camp Los Angeles Stadium New Zealand Iran Tehrangeles diaspora Meymuni cafe Watch Party Persian Square Mohammad Karimi LGBTQ+ celebration game Egypt Iran Mehdi Taremi