World Cup game between US-Iran overshadowed by protests, not politics

While Iranian players did not sing the national anthem before their first game, it is an almost unwinnable position the players are in.

USMNT draw vs. England sets up must-win World Cup match against Iran

Former USWNT player Joanna Lohman breaks down USMNT’s draw against England and what it means for their matchup vs. Iran in the World Cup Group B finale on Tuesday.

SportsPulse, USA TODAY

DOHA, Qatar — The sides were clear the last time Iran and the United States played in a World Cup.

It was 1998, 20 years after the overthrow of the U.S.-backed government in Iran, and America was still the “Great Satan.” To beat the USMNT was to strike a blow for national pride, and if there were any conflicted feelings over whether Team Melli represented the people of Iran or was a tool of its theocratic government, they could be left for another day.

Now the United States is almost a bystander in the political overtones surrounding Tuesday’s game, the protests that have inflamed Iran engulfing the team at the World Cup.

“It’s going to be a lot less about US-Iran tensions and more about Iran-Iran tensions,” said Kristin Diwan, a senior scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, D.C.

Other than an awkward and brief show of support for women in Iran by U.S. Soccer over the weekend and performative questions by Iranian journalists to U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter on Monday, there seems little appetite for making this game a proxy war in relations between the two long-at-odds countries. Given the very real tragedies occurring in Iran, it seems inappropriate and out of place.

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Protests that broke out following the death of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested by the morality police for allegedly violating the conservative dress code, have swept the country and grown to…

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Author : USA TODAY

Publish date : 2022-11-28 23:40:11

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