We’ve been keeping a close eye on the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. The two parties seem as close as they’ve ever been to a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
But the conflict also coincides with the World Cup, and for Iran’s team, the stakes are high.
The tournament has a long history of national rivalries playing out on the pitch. And it can get emotional. When East Germany unexpectedly beat West Germany in 1974, players secretly swapped jerseys, even though the East German regime had forbidden it. When Argentina defeated England just four years after the Falklands War, both teams said the match felt more like a battle than a game.
Geopolitics looming over football during the World Cup isn’t new, in other words. Even so, the host country being at war with a participating nation is extreme. With Iran taking the field today for its first match, against New Zealand, my colleague Parin Behrooz writes about the intense pressure both Iranian players and fans are under.
Some of my earliest memories are from the 1998 World Cup — the year Iran and the United States faced off in a match some called the most politically charged game in World Cup history.
It was the first time Iran had qualified since the Islamic Revolution and the brutal war with Iraq that followed. The team was stacked with talent, including a young Ali Daei (whose international scoring record stood until it was broken by Cristiano Ronaldo), and became a symbol of a nation rebuilding.
I don’t remember the match itself, but I recall the aftermath. In a major upset, Iran won, and the U.S. was eliminated. Millions flooded the streets, some even openly (and illegally) drinking alcohol.
I was only 3, but I remember my dad hoisting me out the car window as I watched an unending stream of honking cars flood Tehran’s streets. Even the police, who were responsible for crowd control, were celebrating. “That victory unified all Iranians,” one player said after the match.
We don’t yet know if the U.S. and Iran will play each other this year. But if they do, it seems safe to say that a victory would not unify all Iranians. This year’s tournament is not only unfolding amid a war. It’s also happening just months after one of the largest and deadliest government crackdowns since the formation of the Islamic republic, in which thousands were killed and many more were arrested. In the last few months, executions have surged.
The Iranian government, like many others, has always viewed football as a soft power tool. But this year, at a time of deep national divisions, it seems particularly intent on claiming the World Cup squad as its own.
The result is that many Iranians will be wrestling with whether to root for their team, knowing that the state will be watching, and cheering alongside them.
‘Multiply it by 10’
To appreciate the scale of Iran’s obsession with the beautiful game, “take the football passion of Brazil or Argentina and multiply it by 10,” the former national team coach Afshin Ghotbi once said.
Iran is also good at football. The national team has reached seven World Cups, including the last four.
The state has long understood that it can leverage the sport’s popularity. After the 1998 victory, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addressed the players on state television, saying that “the strong and arrogant opponent felt the bitter taste of defeat at your hands.” Before the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, many Iranians were outraged when the team participated in a photo op with the president at a time when the state was cracking down on the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests.
Players who have pushed back have paid for it. In 2009, several national team players wore green wristbands during a World Cup qualifying match in Seoul, in apparent solidarity with protests over a disputed election result back home. Fans noticed that most of the wristbands were removed at halftime. There were reports of forced retirements and other punishments. (The Iranian football federation denied them.)
At the 2022 tournament, the same players who had met with the president declined to sing the national anthem at the opening match. But they went on to sing it in subsequent games, looking visibly uncomfortable.
‘The government’s team’?
The stakes of the war have meant that this year’s squad has been sucked even deeper into politics.
In March, the players held school bags during the national anthem before a friendly with Turkey. Team officials said it was a protest against the U.S. bombing of a school. Officials have said the World Cup team will refer to itself as the “Minab 168,” in memory of the children killed. Last month, the players appeared onstage at a pro-government rally. Last week, the Islamic Republic News Agency’s English-language X account posted a subtitled, A.I.-generated video that draped the team in religious and state symbols. Many regime opponents have begun calling the national squad “the government’s team.”
Mohammad, 30, who lives in Tehran, told me that most of his friends — lifelong football fans — don’t want the team to win. Mohammad, who asked that only his first name be used for fear of retribution, said he felt for the players, who are under immense pressure. But his friends think they’re all “bootlickers,” he said.
But Shawheen Keyani, a filmmaker in Los Angeles who grew up in Iran, told me he still sees the team as a way for Iranians to show the world a different face. “It’s another representation of our country and our people, beyond what’s in the news media,” he said.
Football used to be the one thing that could still unify Iranians. But the war, the divisions and the difficult political realities in Iran all cut too deep now.
In 2026, Iranian football has become another arena where complicated emotions about identity and who gets to represent Iran on the world stage collide. The question “Who am I cheering for when I cheer for Iran?” is on many fans’ minds. Not because they love the sport any less, but because the state has made it impossible to forget that it loves football, too — for very different reasons.
MORE TOP NEWS
An Israeli strike in Lebanon amid a push for a U.S.-Iran deal
President Trump said yesterday that “all sides should stand down” in Lebanon as the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah complicated efforts to finalize a U.S.-Iran cease-fire deal.
The Israeli military launched the strikes on the Dahiya neighborhood of Beirut, where Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group, has long held sway. Earlier on Sunday, Israel accused the group of violating a cease-fire by firing toward northern Israel. Here’s the latest.
David Hockney, who has died at 88, was born in England, but many of his bright paintings captured the spirit of sun-drenched Los Angeles. He was one of the first widely popular artists of his time to work with undisguised gay content and one of the few to take a public stand against the censoring of gay imagery.
MORNING READ
Japan’s imperial family, which allows only men to assume the throne, is running out of royals. So the country has a plan to help revitalize its dwindling ranks: Recruit more men.
Hoping to avoid a succession crisis, Japan’s legislature has moved forward with a plan to allow the imperial family to adopt distant male relatives. That could give Japan more choices for future emperors. But some are angered that the approach ignores an easier solution: allowing women to reign. Read more.
Meet the weaver keeping a tradition alive
High in the Venezuelan Andes, Margarita Mora, 91, weaves entirely by hand, dyeing the wool with native plants and avocado pits that she gathers.
In most parts of the world, machines have replaced ancient weaving techniques, but Mora has clung to a mix of ancestral Indigenous and Spanish traditions. A single large piece can take two or three months, and the patterns she creates feature motifs like hands, butterflies, scissors and axes. “It hasn’t made me rich,” she said, “but it has kept me going all my life.” Watch her at work.
Xec (pronounced “shek”) is a juicy citrus salsa from Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, and it pairs perfectly with almost any kind of fish, cooked almost any kind of way. Don’t skip the minced habanero, so you get that extra kick.
