Moorpark, California
The crest is purple, white and inexperienced – the colours of the Iranian flag. Nader Adeli, the 65-year-old captain of Arya Football Club, holds up the jersey and laughs: “We are Iranian! We are Aryan, alright?”
All 11 Arya FC gamers on the sphere are Iranian or Iranian American.
It is a Wednesday night in Moorpark, within the San Fernando Valley, and a pleasant sport in opposition to one other native leisure league staff is about to kick off.
Less than 50 miles away at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, renamed Los Angeles stadium at some stage in the World Cup, Iran’s nationwide staff on Monday will play their first match below unprecedented circumstances.
For the primary time in World Cup historical past, a number nation is at warfare with one among its contributors. Visa delays, immigration restrictions, and journey bans have made the logistics and the optics of Team Iran’s participation complicated, to say the least.
As the primary match day approaches for Iran, Arya FC gamers discover themselves on the crossroads of cultural identification, sports activities and politics.
Take the jersey.
“You’ve probably heard of the dilemma between the Allah in the middle and the sun and lion,” Adeli stated. He needed the design to acknowledge the staff’s all-Iranian heritage, however with out entering into the controversy of which flag to make use of.
Iran’s official flag options the Islamic emblem in its center white stripe and the phrase “Allahu’ Akbar”, Arabic for “God is great” written throughout a number of occasions in white.
“This is not my flag. To me, that’s a terrorist organization, period,” stated Ramin Ghashghaei, 61, an Arya FC defender and immigration lawyer.
His opinion is shared by many Iranians within the United States. They desire a historic flag used for hundreds of years, till the 1979 revolution, that’s now related to teams opposing Iran’s Islamic authorities: the Sun and Lion flag, wherein a golden lion holding up a curved sword takes the place of the Islamic emblem within the middle.
But soccer’s governing physique FIFA has a stadium code of conduct prohibits “banners, flags, apparel and other paraphernalia that are of a political, offensive and/or discriminatory nature” from World Cup venues. It has pointed to that coverage when requested whether or not followers could be permitted to carry the Lion and Sun flag into stadiums, upsetting Iranian followers and the broader diaspora – a lot so {that a} protest is deliberate to happen outdoors the stadium throughout Iran’s first sport.
But the flag controversy is simply one of many points that divide the neighborhood of Iranians overseas.
Following the airstrikes that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in February 2026, crowds took to the streets within the Persian neighborhood of Westwood, also called “Tehrangeles”, to rejoice his demise. They chanted “Thank you, President Trump” and “Thank you, Bibi Netanyahu” whereas flying Sun and Lion flags.
But others cautioned that US strikes didn’t assure regime change, expressed skepticism that the human price of a warfare could be value it and questioned Trump’s motivations.
After greater than 100 days of warfare, the World Cup has re-ignited these debates – and regardless of quite a lot of assurances from Trump, the battle remains to be not over although each the US and Iran have signaled an settlement shall be signed.
To some, the Islamic Republic’s political grip on the game runs too deep to disregard. Ghashghaei, the Arya FC participant, plans to boycott the event – which solely takes place as soon as each 4 years – totally.
“I love soccer — soccer is inherently in the Persian culture,” he stated. “We talk about it in family gatherings, elders, youngsters, women and men in the stadium cheering, going at each other. That’s beautiful.”
But he received’t be watching Team Melli.
“That is not an Iranian national team in my opinion. In Iran, everything is about who you know, who you buy, political ideology. Do you support the Islamic Republic or you don’t? If you do, then maybe you get a priority to be in the team. That’s just a political move.”
Arya FC captain Adeli echoes his teammate’s sentiments on Iran’s staff choice however his coronary heart stays with the nationwide squad nonetheless.
Omeed Askary, a 26-year-old Iranian American lawyer in New York, drew a parallel with the US staff, who he may also be cheering on.
“I’m an American. I want American athletes to do really well. Does that mean I support President Trump, his administration, ICE, even the American military’s operations? Of course not. I still want my team to do well,” he stated.
“Iran is a theocratic dictatorship,” he added. “But that doesn’t mean they’re not really good football players, that they don’t speak my language, eat my food, share my culture. And a win for Iran far precedes the foundation of the Islamic Republic and will far outlast its rule over the country.”
Askary had a ticket to the Iran-Egypt match in Seattle on June 26, however resold it, saying he couldn’t carry himself to be counted in a crowd he imagined Trump would tweet about.
A World Cup staff overshadowed by warfare
The query of who to root for has been additional complicated by who may even get into the stadium. Typically, below FIFA rules, 8% of tickets to each World Cup match are reserved for every nation competing in order that nationwide federations can promote them to their followers.
Last week, Iran’s soccer federation introduced that its complete ticket allocation had been withdrawn, leaving followers who had already made journey plans with nothing.
“Under current circumstances,” the federation stated, “we are unable to provide even a single ticket to supporters of the national team.”
Fans weren’t the one ones combating logistical challenges. Getting the staff to their matches has required a posh association with no precedent in World Cup historical past.
Iran soccer staff arrives in Tijuana, Mexico
The Iran staff was initially imagined to be based mostly in Tucson, Arizona. Instead, they landed at Tijuana International Airport on June 7, organising camp at Centro Xoloitzcuintle simply south of the US border. At the airport entrance, round 20 followers waved flags because the staff arrived.
Every group-stage match will contain a border crossing into the US, however, in keeping with a spokesperson for the Iranian Football Federation, gamers will solely enter the US at some point earlier than the primary match and two days earlier than every of the subsequent two matches to attenuate their time within the nation.
Head coach Amir Ghalenoei informed Iran’s semi-official Tasnim information company that administration employees, media personnel and an government director had nonetheless not been granted permission to cross in any respect.
“I ask you, what kind of treatment is this?” Ghalenoei said last Sunday, according to Tasnim.
Federation president Mehdi Taj known as Washington’s conduct a mirrored image of “malice and a lack of equality among teams,” in keeping with the Iranian Students’ News Agency, and stated the federation would file a protest with FIFA.
In Adeli’s view, the journey time and coordination required for Team Iran simply to indicate as much as its matches poses a transparent aggressive drawback – to a staff that has already been coping with the horrors of warfare for months. To him, it’s time this warfare ends, however many others, like Ghashghaei, disagree.
“Trump made a promise to the Iranian people,” he stated. “We’ve been waiting for freedom.”
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For Kevan Harris, a professor of sociology at UCLA and an knowledgeable on trendy Iran and Iranian society, none of that is shocking.
Harris, who’s Iranian American, says the neighborhood has been by a political wringer because the Mahsa Amini protests of 2022, which introduced many Iranians who had by no means been significantly politically engaged right into a interval of intense activism.
In 2026, many believed the warfare may speed up regime change. When it didn’t, what adopted was one thing Harris calls demobilization.
“There are people who don’t speak to each other anymore in Los Angeles,” he stated, including that in warfare, extra militaristic voices are likely to win. “The nationalism of a different hue comes to the fore. What that really means is demobilization. People are disassociating themselves in some ways.”
In the center of all that, comes a World Cup like none earlier than. Harris is cautious about predicting what it’s going to imply. The sport, he suggests, operates not from logic however from one thing older and tougher to argue with.
“Of course, I’m not gonna cheer for this team because it doesn’t represent me,” he stated, describing the place many within the diaspora maintain heading into Monday. “But you kind of can’t help it — because it doesn’t really come from that rational place.”
He recollects the Brazilian nationwide staff below army dictatorship within the early Seventies.
“Once the team started winning, people basically forgot about the politics. People see themselves represented as a team, they feel this collectivity,” he stated.
He shouldn’t be predicting that can occur right here. “Sports is supposed to displace war,” he stated. “It’s not supposed to be war.”
Brazil took the 1970 Cup residence, and whereas the army regime used soccer star Pelé as a propaganda instrument, individuals cheered anyway. The trophy didn’t change any legal guidelines or soften the dictatorship’s grip on tradition and society, however for 90 minutes at a time, none of that was the purpose.
As Iran takes the sphere on Monday, warfare could or could not nonetheless be raging, pending peace talks. Adeli, for one, has made peace with the duality.
“At the end of the day,” he stated, “it is football time.”