After a year that brought Iranians two devastating wars, mass protests crushed by the government and an imploding economy, Iran’s appearance in the World Cup is doing little to cheer people up or to unite the country.
Some Iranians view the national soccer team as representatives of a repressive government. Others see the players as a source of pride that should transcend politics. But the overall feeling, expressed in interviews with Iranians across the political spectrum in recent days, is one of exhaustion and jadedness.
Iranians’ problems are so dire, it appears, that even seeing their national team play at the highest levels of an enormously popular sport won’t deliver much-needed distraction.
“People don’t feel pride anymore,” said Iman, 38, a Tehran resident who said he would not be supporting the Iranian team. Like others interviewed by The New York Times, he declined to be fully identified for fear of government reprisal.
“People have so many problems and are dealing with so many challenges that this soccer thing is really not a big deal for them,” he added.
Another Tehran resident, Iraj, 48, said he would be cheering on the national team. But, he said, “everyone is so occupied with other things that soccer really doesn’t unite.”
Iran’s first match is set to take place in Los Angeles on Monday at 9 p.m. E.T., against New Zealand.
A year ago this week, Iran was under bombardment as Israel carried out a 12-day assault aimed at leveling Iran’s nuclear program and weakening its military. Six months later, the country burst into mass protests that were set off by a failing economy and that quickly called for an end to the country’s theocratic government. The authorities responded with one of the deadliest crackdowns in Iran’s modern history, with one human rights group, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, finding that nearly 6,500 protesters were killed.
Then, in February, the United States and Israel launched a broad air campaign against Iran, targeting its leaders, damaging key infrastructure and killing civilians. The Iranian government stifled internet access for months and has arrested and executed dissidents. Prices for basic goods have risen so much that people are struggling to afford even the simplest foods.
It all adds up to a poisonous atmosphere, with few people in the mood to enthusiastically follow the national team’s World Cup exploits.
“I have such major concerns these days that, unlike in previous years, the World Cup is the least important thing to me,” said Hasti, a 26-year-old university student in Tehran. “The conversations, whispers and concerns of people these days can all be summed up in a few words: poverty, regime corruption, inflation, cease-fire or war, and an uncertain economic and political future.”
Like some other Iranians, Hasti said she viewed the members of the team as representatives of Iran’s theocratic government and as complicit in the repression of dissidents.
“I feel hatred toward the national team,” she said. “They are normalizing the idea that this system has legitimacy in Iran.”
Others said they did not expect the players to risk their jobs or even their freedom by speaking out politically. Many on the team come from modest backgrounds and have made sacrifices to reach the highest levels of their sport.
“As soccer players, we are here to unite everybody,” Mehdi Taremi, a striker on the Iranian team, said at a news conference on Sunday. “All our efforts are aimed at making all the people of Iran happy.”
Soccer in Iran has long been political and is tightly controlled by the state. The head of the country’s soccer federation, Mehdi Taj, is a former senior commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the military force that defends Iran’s clerical system of government.
In 2009, when millions of Iranians took to the streets in the so-called Green Movement to protest what they believed was a rigged election, several Iranian players wore green wristbands during a high-profile match in an apparent gesture of support. Some of those players were later reported to have been banned from the national team, though Iran denied taking any disciplinary action.
During the World Cup in 2022, some Iranians celebrated openly when the national team lost to the United States. The match came just weeks after a woman was arrested over her dress and killed in the custody of Iran’s morality police, leading to mass protests.
This year, Sardar Azmoun, a striker who has appeared in two World Cups, was left off Iran’s roster, even though he is one of the country’s top scorers.
Mr. Azmoun, who plays for an Emirati club team, shared a picture of himself with Emirati leaders as Iran was striking inside the United Arab Emirates during the war. Fars News, an outlet affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, in March called Mr. Azmoun’s action a betrayal of his country and reported that he had been cut from the national team as a result.
“There is no question that the government will try to draw political benefit from the national team’s presence at the World Cup, as it has done with major sporting events in the past,” said Omid Memarian, an Iran expert at DAWN, a foreign policy think tank in Washington.
“But many Iranians separate the team from the government,” he added. “Their view is that World Cup appearances become part of the country’s sporting history long after particular governments are gone.”
Many Iranians have fond memories of the mid-1990s-to-mid-2000s era of Iranian soccer. When the team won memorable victories over South Korea and the United States and qualified for the 1998 World Cup, Iranians broke out into spontaneous street celebrations.
There were wide hopes among young people at the time that the government could be reformed gradually into a more representative one via elections and civic activism. But for many, those hopes have soured, and Iranian politics have become more divided.
“My feeling toward the national team today is not like it used to be. Everything has changed,” said Mohsen, a 29-year-old merchant in the central Iranian city of Isfahan. “Life has become harder, and mentally we are not doing well.”
He still wanted the team to win, he said. But he would not go out of his way to watch the matches.
