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Tehran, Iran Iran’s national football team has failed again realize the dream reach the final stage of the World Cup, and the 2026 war-time tournament that is causing different opinions among Iranians inside and outside the country for different reasons.
Team Melli finished its seventh appearance in the competition after 1-1 in Seattle Friday’s performance against Egypt left them third in Group G, with just three points collected from three games.
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The team was eliminated a day later, with the results of the other matches leading to the eight third-placed teams in the tournament advancing to the next round after FIFA expanded the field from 32 to 48 teams.
“This was unlikely to happen, I couldn’t believe how we got out again, we only have one place to go,” Milad, a resident of Tehran who watched all the matches involving Iran at the World Cup, told Al Jazeera.
The situation was so unusual that, among other things, it left the headmaster pondering divine intervention, and state television accusing other groups of fraud and collusion.
In the Egypt match, centre-back Shoja Khalilzadeh looked to have scored a winner in the 93rd minute that would have sent Iran into the round of 32, but VAR ruled it was not to be. a few centimeters his right foot was bent.
One of the trainers suffered a broken nose after a member of staff inadvertently head-butted him during a goal celebration before the end of the match.
The celebration of Khalilzadeh’s goals included filming with glasses, so Egypt – which went ahead – later mocked him with an Instagram photo of striker Mohamed Salah laughing while wearing glasses.
Disappointed head coach Amir Ghalenoei told state television during an interview that he believed everyone enjoyed the game, but at times it seemed like “God was against us” because of the lack of opportunities – which included Iran scoring three goals that overturned VAR in the competition, the highest of any team.
He also charged difficult situations met with players and staff at an unprecedented World Cup event, where the United States has been at war with host nation Iran for the past four months.
The US military bombed several islands in the Strait of Hormuz south of Iran just hours before the start of the Iran-Egypt match.
Football officials, as well as staff and journalists, were denied visas to travel to the United States to participate in the tournament, on the grounds that they are affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the group that is running the war and politics in Iran.
The team was allowed to enter a more restrictive environment, and was supposed to be in Tijuana, Mexico instead of the chosen Tucson, Arizona.
They had to enter the US within 24 hours of the game and leave the same day, with a slight reduction that allowed them to arrive two days before the Seattle game.
‘She’s totally crazy’
After the Egypt game, Iran needed one of three things to qualify: Croatia had to lose to Ghana, but won 2-1; DR Congo had to fail to beat Uzbekistan, but won 3-1; and Algeria vs Austria should have made a winner, but the match ended 3-3.
A few hours before the match between Algeria and Austria, Javad Khiabani, a sports presenter who has been known for many years for football commentary, released a video message in Arabic, addressed to the “Muslim Brothers in Algeria”. He asked them to defeat Austria and allow Iran, a war-torn Muslim majority country, to advance.
Some Iranian television stations and broadcasters who broadcast the match were worried after Algeria’s Riyad Mahrez scored from deep, making it a 3-2 result that would have sent Iran through.
“Now, the Islamic world is doing something to keep another Islamic world in the arena,” shouted one happy commentator, linking the sport to religion.
He and most of the Iranian crowd watching at home were left disappointed after half-time when Austrian midfielder Sasa Kalajdzic used his first touch of the game to equalize with a header in the box. The results benefited both teams, as they sent them both into the next round, with Austria facing Spain and Algeria facing Switzerland.
Some inside and outside Iran have suggested that the match was rigged, but Austria head coach Ralf Rangnick responded to allegations of match-fixing by saying: “If Alfred Hitchcock had written a play like this, I would have called him completely mad”.
Killings that destroyed people
About a Second World Cup in a rowIran’s national football team has not enjoyed unanimous support from Iranians inside or outside the country, due to the fallout from public protests against the Islamic Republic, the theocracy that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Revolution.
In January 2026, thousands of Iranians, including at least 230 children, were killed during this protests against the establishment of the whole country which exploded in a large country of more than 90 million people. The government, as in previous protests, put all the blame on “terrorists” perpetrated by the US and Israel, but Amnesty International called the “horrendous destruction” carried out by the government which included a complete shutdown of the Internet.
Months after the killings shocked some Iranians, some believe the footballers – who have avoided commenting on the protests, but have sometimes supported the government – are not representatives of a united Iran.
Outside US stadiums at the World Cup, some anti-Islamic Iranians protested using Iran’s pre-1979 lion and sun flag, as opposed to the official flag with the word “Allah” in the middle, but many Iranians who came from abroad. he finished enjoying himself for the team in packed stadiums.
Mohammad Khakpour, the former captain of Team Melli who now lives in the US, wrote in an Instagram post on Sunday that the reaction of Iranians after Iran’s elimination from the tournament has a message.
“When a part of the population feels that Team Melli no longer represents their feelings, pains or hopes, a chasm is created,” he said. “People may not be happy because of the loss of football, but sometimes they can be happy because of the fall of an image that they do not consider to be true”.
Farhad, a 36-year-old resident of eastern Tehran, told Al Jazeera that many years from now, people will remember Team Melli not only for representing the Islamic Republic but also for the football history it left behind.
He said: “Personally, I would have liked it if he had gone ahead, but I am not disappointed that he did not.”
