L.A. Iranians see hope, unity in SoFi Stadium World Cup match

Iran’s World Cup team arrived in Tijuana last week, wearing gold lapel pins on their jackets commemorating the 168 victims, mostly schoolgirls, killed in the Feb. 28 U.S. missile attack on an elementary school in southern Iran at the beginning of the war.

The World Cup kicked off last week with Iran playing their opening match against New Zealand at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on Monday as the war in the Middle East continues. It is significant that the match was played in the Los Angeles region, which hosts the largest Iranian population outside of Iran.

Iran will play in the United States, but its players will not be allowed to stay there. The team moved its training base from Tucson to Tijuana last month due to visa hurdles and other travel restrictions imposed by the Trump administration.

All 26 Iranian players have been granted playing visas, but they will have to commute from Mexico. Some team officials had their visas denied at the last minute, and more than a dozen members of the Iranian delegation, mostly administrative, managerial and technical staff, are denied entry to the United States.

The State Department told ESPN in a statement that it had issued the “necessary visas” and suggested that the Iranian team “could abuse this system to sneak terrorists into the United States.”

The Iranian Football Federation argues that denying visas to key personnel constitutes political interference and violates guarantees given by the United States to secure its rights to host the World Cup in 2018.

FIFA says the host country has no authority over border security and cannot overrule the United States. However, when Indonesian government officials said they would ban Israeli players and officials from participating in the U20 World Cup in 2023, FIFA made the necessary arrangements for the tournament to be held in Argentina, where Israel finished third.

The United States became the first host nation in World Cup history to go to war in the tournament qualifiers. As a result, the already tense mood in the Iranian community in Southern California, wracked by political division, could become even more tense.

Iran has played the United States only once, in January 2000, a 1-1 draw with the Americans. Organizing the game took months of negotiations because the countries do not have formal diplomatic ties, and the Iranians requested special fingerprinting and security exemptions at the airport.

Iran may achieve more success on Monday. Türkiye, which ranks 21st in the world rankings, is no stranger to the World Cup. He has qualified for the last four tournaments and five of the last six, but has won just two matches in those tournaments. Although it has never advanced from the group stage, it came close to doing so four years ago when the team returned home with a 1-0 defeat to the USA.

This year, if both the USA and Iran pass the first round and finish second in their groups, they can meet in Dallas on July 3.

Shaheen Ferdowsi, owner of Meymuni Cafe in West Hollywood, has been busy lately preparing for a viewing party the store will host for Monday’s game, setting up what she describes as a “huge” flat-screen TV.

Ferdowsi, 31, said it was appropriate for a cafe serving modern Persian cuisine to bring the community together during such a troubling time. After all, he states that “Meymuni” means “party” in Persian.

“As Iranians, we have been through enough this year,” Ferdowsi said.

Iranian Alireza Jahanbakhsh came to Tijuana with his teammates for the World Cup.

(Gregory Bull / Associated Press)

Experts said that two of the three group matches played by the Iranian team at SoFi could be protested by some hardliners who oppose the Iranian government. Others may avoid the game altogether, seeing the team as interchangeable with the government they are running from. Others hope this will be a moment of unity and love for the Iranian community in Los Angeles.

Ferdowsi said some other operators in the area rejected the idea of ​​holding a watch party. He said he avoided delving into geopolitical issues. He said the sport “transcends” the divide.

“Disruptive and very complex things are happening, but to my very small operator mentality, the World Cup itself is very exciting and our people are coming here, where there are the most Iranians outside of Iran,” Ferdowsi said. “Being behind a team can bring people together.”

While Iranian-Americans grapple with the potential for two countries at war to make it on the ground, they are also preparing for the debates centered around their screens.

A vocal section of the diaspora supported the campaign to appoint Reza Pahlavi, the exiled crown prince and son of the late Shah, as Iran’s leader. This group supported the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a US-Israeli attack on the first day of the war and the conflict that followed.

But some in this group are wary of the killing of civilians and Trump’s violent rhetoric. A poll commissioned by the National Iranian American Council in March showed that nearly two-thirds of Iranian Americans oppose the war.

Some ardent monarchist Iranians became disillusioned and inactive when regime change failed, said Kevan Harris, a sociology professor at UCLA who studies the Iranian diaspora.

“Divisions [in the Iranian community] “It may not be as harsh and divisive as it was before,” Harris said.

Still, he said, those who see the team as a symbol of the Iranian government may think watching the game is taboo. Harris said FIFA’s plan to ban Iran’s pre-1979 revolutionary flag, which is adorned with a lion and the rising sun symbolizing Pahlavi and those who support a return to monarchy, could spark some protests, but he doubted there would be a strong demonstration as the movement has been de-energised.

A passerby is reflected in the window of the Galeri Eshgh store along Westwood Boulevard, which features a poster supporting Reza Pahlavi, the exiled crown prince and son of the late shah.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Ashkan Karmi, 35, who lives in Anaheim and is a long-time fan of Iranian football, said he always makes it a point to support Iranian teams that come to California. She attended all of the Iran team’s matches in the 2023 Volleyball Nations League tournament in Anaheim and paid $450 for a ticket to Monday’s game at SoFi Stadium.

The tickets were too expensive for his friends, but he paid for them and will attend alone. He plans to bring the lion and sun flag to show that although he is against the US-Israeli war, he is also against the Iranian government, but he expects it to be turned down.

Karmi, who asked to be identified only by her first and middle name for fear of repercussions when she tries to visit Iran in the future, said the play was a chance to “reconnect with this homeland and its people.”

He attended the club’s football matches as a child but did not return for 18 years. He now has family members who “can’t sleep well at night” during the US attacks, but he knows who will be watching the game.

He said he was looking forward to watching winger Mehdi Ghayedi, who is quick and shows great technical ability.

According to Christina Lila Wilson, 39, who spent summers with Iranian relatives in West Los Angeles until she moved out as a teenager, the U.S. treatment of the team goes against her cultural values. This represents a rare point of agreement in his family, which has been bitterly divided over U.S. intervention in Iran.

“Hospitality in Iran is like an active duty and an honor. Even if your worst enemy is at your door, you would risk your life to protect him,” Wilson said. “So even to not allow [the players] “Sleeping after gaming feels so insulting and unfair because players are paying so much money that it’s beyond their control.”

Wilson’s uncles, cousins ​​and other relatives plan to gather at his parents’ home in Westwood to watch the game. His family, he said, is a small sample of the diaspora, with his mother, an Iranian Christian, and other relatives of various faith backgrounds, including Baha’i, Zoroastrian, secular Muslim and Sufi expressions.

He expects arguments to arise as in past meetings. Recently, his cousin, whose house displays a lion and sun flag prominently, clashed with his uncle, who supports a blank tricolor flag without the emblem of the pre-revolutionary flag or the Islamic message of the current flag.

He hopes the play will serve as a connection point and find a different outlet for his community’s anger.

“We feel the need to humanize the Iranians because Americans are used to seeing all of this land as numbers, rubble, or desert, and that makes us numb to what’s going on there,” Wilson said. “Civilians paid the price with their lives, and that’s why we want to support. The team is a symbol of the resilience of the Iranian spirit.”