From 1998 to 2022, One Bed and Two Dreams
From 1998 to 2022, one bed and two dreams. Football is not just an ordinary game. If a team doesn’t have the support of its fans and people, it’s no different than a bunch of clowns pointlessly chasing a ball. This is a quote from the book ‘Football Against the Enemy’ by Simon Kuper, translated by Adel Ferdosipour, which has been repeatedly shared since yesterday after Iran’s 6-2 defeat to England. It seems as if the author’s prediction was about the current state of Iran’s national team. In his book, Kuper accurately discusses the relationship and impact of politics on football, providing dozens of examples from various countries he visited.
If Kuper decides to revise and reprint his book, certainly what happened yesterday to Iran’s national football team could become a turning point in his book, something far beyond the influence of politics on football, but rather football as politics itself, the essence of politics.
A rare and astonishing event in the history of the World Cup, where fans of a national team bought tickets to attend the stadium and chant ‘dishonorable, dishonorable’ against their own national team. A point in World Cup and football history where people celebrated their national team’s defeat and cheered for the opposing team’s victory, and the players, wearing black armbands, refused to sing the national anthem.
Kuper has highlighted the frightening connection between football and politics in his book. According to him, football is used as an efficient tool against a common goal, the enemy. Therefore, sometimes the historical hatred of fans of two teams can be traced in national matches. However, Kuper never imagined that this politics would dominate football to such an extent that this hatred would not be directed at the opposing team but would boomerang back towards the home team.
Who would have believed that there would be a time when people would express joy at their national team conceding goals? A player who hears curses instead of cheers in the middle of the field, what strength does he have to fight?
From ’98 to 2022
The people of Iran will never forget two World Cups in football history: the 1998 and 2022 World Cups. The 1998 qualifiers and then the World Cup itself came right after Mohammad Khatami’s victory and the rise of the Second of Khordad movement. Beyond the star quality of that team, one cannot overlook the atmosphere of excitement and hope created in society after the reformist government came to power.
The hope that was consequently injected into the national team, giving it undeniable confidence. The entire society was fixated on the national team, following all its movements and news, and with full support, they expected victory.
The street celebrations of the people after defeating Australia in the qualifiers and the USA in the World Cup remain in memories. In contrast to these days, although it should be said that celebrating the national team’s loss to England with a score of 6-2 seems somewhat unfair and unjust, and probably this feeling is not widespread among the majority of people, it can be said that most people have a kind of localized numbness towards the national team’s participation in the World Cup. Perhaps indifference is the best description of the current state of the people and fans of the national team.
The story began when initially campaigns for the expulsion of the national team from the World Cup competitions were formed from abroad, and then whispers of the national team withdrawing from participating in the World Cup began to circulate in social media.
However, people’s anger increased when images and news of the team’s meeting with Ebrahim Raisi were published, at a time when some football figures had taken the side of the protesters, and even Daei and Mahdavikia and some others rejected the federation or FIFA’s invitation to attend Qatar, effectively boycotting it.
We Lost to Ourselves
Hossein Ghadyani, a conservative writer and media activist, believes in a piece about yesterday’s defeat that we did not lose to England but to ourselves. We lost because we wished for the national team’s defeat. We lost because the leaders of the regime do not want to accept that when a president enters Pasteur by overcoming invalid votes, it means the gap between the public and the Islamic Republic is turning into a chasm between the nation and the government.
We lost because high-ranking officials refuse to acknowledge that reforms in the country are necessary and inevitable. We lost because in a newspaper run by the representative of the Supreme Leader, we falsely report that 99% of the people are revolutionary, and of course, we tremble like a leaf at the suggestion of a referendum.
Mohsen Tanabandeh also immediately after the national team’s loss wrote on his Instagram page, ‘We lost, and we deserved to lose, not with this result. We previously played against a much better team than England, Spain, and we were great. It was no coincidence.
Argentina, Portugal, this result was not the result on the field. It was the result of a bad mood and spirit. It was Kurdistan, it was Mahabad, it was Sistan and Baluchistan, and many believe that the national team lost within the land of Iran, not on the football field, even before entering the match against England.
A team that every four years had the entire Iranian society united and in harmony behind it, yesterday went to the field while hashtags like ‘I don’t watch the game’ were being shared happily with the national team’s loss. The result of the game was not only on the football field but could be heard in the stands, in the virtual space, among ordinary people in the streets, and in the voices that rose from the windows. Our national football team had already lost when people started comparing it to a club team, to the women’s basketball team of Congo.
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