{"id":515961,"date":"2026-06-29T03:09:38","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T03:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/515961\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T03:09:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T03:09:38","slug":"heightened-emotions-in-iran-after-team-melli-knocked-out-of-world-cup-world-cup-2026-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/515961\/","title":{"rendered":"Heightened emotions in Iran after Team Melli knocked out of World Cup | World Cup 2026 News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tehran, Iran \u2013 Iran\u2019s national football team has once again failed to realise the dream<\/a> of reaching the knockout phase of the World Cup, with the wartime 2026 tournament stirring up a wide range of emotions among Iranians inside and outside the country for different reasons.<\/p>\n

Team Melli ended its seventh appearance in the tournament after a 1-1 draw in Seattle<\/a> on Friday against Egypt left them in third place in Group G, with only three points gleaned from three draws.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

The team was eliminated a day later, after a series of other match results left them just outside of the tournament\u2019s eight third-placed teams advancing to the next stage after FIFA expanded from 32 to 48 teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was very unlikely to happen, I couldn\u2019t believe how we got out again, with just one spot away from advancing,\u201d Milad, a resident of Tehran who watched all matches impacting Iran\u2019s run at the World Cup, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

The circumstances were so peculiar that, among other things, they left the head coach pondering divine intervention, and state television accusing other teams of cheating and collusion.<\/p>\n

During the Egypt match, centre-back Shoja Khalilzadeh appeared to score a 93rd-minute winner that would have automatically sent Iran into the Round of 32, but VAR ruled it out after a few centimetres<\/a>\u00a0of his right foot were offside.<\/p>\n

\"SEATTLE,Video replay in the stadium shows Shoja Khalilzadeh of Iran as offside when he scored the second goal which was then dissallowed during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Group G match between Egypt and on June 26, 2026 in Seattle, Washington [Richard Heathcote\/Getty Images] (AFP)<\/p>\n

A member of the coaching staff had his nose broken after another staff member inadvertently headbutted him during emotional group celebrations of the goal before it was overturned.<\/p>\n

Khalilzadeh\u2019s goal celebration included posing with sunglasses, so Egypt \u2013 which advanced to the knockout phase \u2013 later taunted him with an Instagram picture of striker Mohamed Salah giggling while wearing sunglasses.<\/p>\n

A disgruntled head coach Amir Ghalenoei told state television during a live post-match interview that he believed everyone enjoyed the match, but at times it seemed like \u201cGod was at odds with us\u201d due to the lack of good luck \u2013 which also included Iran scoring three VAR-overturned goals during the competition, the highest of any team.<\/p>\n

He also blamed tough conditions<\/a>\u00a0faced by the players and the entire staff during an unprecedented World Cup campaign, in which the main host country, the United States, has been at war with a participating nation, Iran, for the past four months.<\/p>\n

The US military bombed several islands in the Strait of Hormuz in Iran\u2019s southern waters just hours before kick-off in the Iran-Egypt match.<\/p>\n

Football federation officials, as well as other staff and media personnel, were denied visas to travel to the US for the tournament, on grounds that included their alleged affiliation with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the force running war and politics in Iran.<\/p>\n

The playing squad was only allowed in under unusually tight restrictions, and had to be mostly based in Mexico\u2019s Tijuana instead of the originally designated Tucson in Arizona.<\/p>\n

They had to enter the US within 24 hours of a match and leave on the same day, with only a slight easing allowing them to arrive two days early for the Seattle match.<\/p>\n

\u2018Completely mad\u2019<\/p>\n

After the Egypt match, Iran needed just one of three things to go their way: Croatia had to lose to Ghana, but it won 2-1; DR Congo had to fail to beat Uzbekistan, but won 3-1; and Algeria vs Austria had to produce a winner, but the match ended 3-3.<\/p>\n

Hours before the Algeria-Austria match, Javad Khiabani, a sports presenter infamous for decades of eccentric football\u00a0commentary, released a video message in Arabic, addressed to the \u201cMuslim brothers in Algeria\u201d. He asked them to defeat Austria and allow Iran, a Muslim-majority country that has suffered war, to advance.<\/p>\n

Other hosts of Iranian state television and radio channels broadcasting the match live went through an emotional rollercoaster after Algeria\u2019s Riyad Mahrez scored deep into stoppage time, creating a 3-2 result that would have sent Iran through.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, a Muslim country is doing something to keep another Muslim country in the knockout stage,\u201d shouted\u00a0another ecstatic commentator, again linking the sport with religion.<\/p>\n

He and many Iranians watching at home were devastated moments later when Austria\u2019s Sasa Kalajdzic used his first touch of the game to equalise with a header in the box. The result benefited both teams, because it sent both into the next round, with Austria facing Spain and Algeria facing better odds against Switzerland.<\/p>\n

Some inside and outside Iran suggested the game was rigged, but Austria\u2019s head coach Ralf Rangnick responded to match-fixing allegations by saying: \u201cIf Alfred Hitchcock had written such a drama, I probably would have said he was completely mad\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"SEATTLE,Shoja Khalilzadeh #4 of IR Iran scores his team\u2019s second goal that was ruled offside following a VAR review during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Group G match between Egypt and IR Iran at Seattle Stadium on June 26, 2026 in Seattle, Washington [Dean Mouhtaropoulos\/Getty Images]\u00a0Killings that scarred society<\/p>\n

For a second consecutive World Cup<\/a>, Iran\u2019s national football team did not enjoy unified support from Iranians inside or outside the country, due to the fallout from public protests against the Islamic Republic, the theocratic establishment that has governed Iran since the 1979 Revolution.<\/p>\n

In January 2026, thousands of Iranians, including at least 230 children, were killed during nationwide anti-establishment protests<\/a> that erupted across the vast country of over 90 million. The government, as with previous protests, put all the blame on \u201cterrorists\u201d organised by the US and Israel, but Amnesty International called it an \u201cunprecedented deadly crackdown\u201d by the state that also included a total internet shutdown.<\/p>\n

Just months after the killings that scarred parts of Iranian society, some believe football players \u2013 who have all avoided commenting on the protests, but in some cases have backed the state \u2013 are not representatives of a unified Iran.<\/p>\n

Outside the stadiums in the US during the World Cup, some anti-Islamic Republic Iranians protested using Iran\u2019s pre-1979 lion-and-sun flag, as opposed to the official flag which features the word \u201cAllah\u201d in the centre,\u00a0but most diaspora Iranians ended up cheering<\/a>\u00a0for the team in packed stadiums.<\/p>\n

Mohammad Khakpour, a former Team Melli captain now based in the US, wrote in an Instagram post on Sunday that the fact Iranians had contrasting emotions after Iran\u2019s elimination from the tournament carries a social message.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a part of the society feels that Team Melli is no longer representative of their emotions, pains or hopes, a chasm is created,\u201d he said. \u201cThe people may not be happy from a football loss, but they may at times be happy about the collapse of an image that they do not consider to be true\u201d.<\/p>\n

Farhad, a 36-year-old resident of eastern Tehran, told Al Jazeera that decades from now, people may remember Team Melli not only as representing the Islamic Republic but also for the football record it left behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally, I preferred it if they advanced, but I\u2019m not devastated that they didn\u2019t,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tehran, Iran \u2013 Iran\u2019s national football team has once again failed to realise the dream of reaching the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,87,46,47,43,2224,105,1032,1156,101640,6866],"class_list":["post-515961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada","tag-world-cup-2026","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}