At Meymuni Cafe, nestled in the West Los Angeles corridor anchoring the city\u2019s vast Iranian diaspora, cheers broke out about 35 minutes into Iran\u2019s 2026 World Cup game against New Zealand on Monday evening. <\/p>\n
Iran had scored its first goal and amid whoops of joy, Parvin, 76, who declined to provide her last name, wiped tears from her cheeks. She watched intently perched on a bench at the very front of the room, at times shrieking and nudging her sister as she pointed at the cafe\u2019s new large flat-screen that loomed overhead.<\/p>\n
She said her faded white T-shirt was more than 50 years old, purchased when she attended the 1974 Asian Games in Tehran, which was one of the last times Iran was able to host an international soccer tournament. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was young then and would just meet boys and drink,\u201d Parvin said. \u201cThis game is more important. That\u2019s my country, it\u2019s my motherland. I want the children of my country to be happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her own sister, by contrast, supported New Zealand, because she said she feels Iran\u2019s team and its players \u201cbelong to the government.\u201d <\/p>\n
The highly charged game at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood set against the backdrop of a months-long war with Iran launched by the U.S. and Israel in February drew strong attendance of L.A. Iranians within the stadium as well as at protests outside. Los Angeles is home to the largest population Iranians outside of Iran.<\/p>\n
Dozens had settled into seats at the cafe, newly arranged in rows for the watch party. They slurped the cafe\u2019s signature lavashak smoothie \u2014 a tart mixture including peaches, various berries and pomegranate molasses \u2014 and munched on slow-cooked lamb over nachos with melty Armenian string cheese.<\/p>\n
Meymuni Cafe\u2019s owner and staff said they wanted to provide a space where L.A. Iranians could gather, and sought to keep it somewhat politically neutral. Some in the diaspora are fearful of being openly associated with one side or another of a bitter divide over the U.S.\u2019s military action. <\/p>\n
But tension was inevitable, with some L.A. Iranians protesting at SoFi Stadium or avoiding the game altogether. Some view the team as interchangeable with the government they fled from. Others see the team and its success on the global stage as representative of the Iranian people\u2019s resilience. <\/p>\n
In the packed stadium, the energy was electric, with fans across political divides cheering on<\/a> Team Melli. Some arguments and other altercations broke out in the stands<\/a> as well as outside the stadium<\/a>, according to footage posted on social media. A group of fans in the stadium booed and turned their backs during the national anthem, waving U.S. and Israeli flags, as well as Iran\u2019s pre-1979 revolution flag emblazoned with a lion and a rising sun despite FIFA\u2019s ban. Some Palestinian flags fluttered in the crowd.<\/p>\n At the cafe, some draped the flag over their shoulders or sported pins, hats or shirts with the lion and sun emblem that is associated with the campaign to return to a monarchy and install Reza Pahlavi, the exiled former crown prince and son of the late shah, as Iran\u2019s leader. <\/p>\n A handful of attendees at the cafe watch party broke into cheers when New Zealand first scored. When Iran scored, an employee jumping and clapping behind the counter led a chant in Farsi of \u201clong live the Shah.\u201d<\/p>\n Laila Emamjoneh, 24, who sat beside her sister and brother-in-law, was startled at the outburst for New Zealand among a group of mostly Iranians. She is half Iranian and half Mexican, and said she had barely followed either teams but wanted to be around her people for this game.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s obviously very intense with everything going on, but I still wanted to be around Persian people,\u201d Emamjoneh said. <\/p>\n Her dad often voices his sadness at the plight of Iranian people back home, she said.<\/p>\n The cafe is typically closed Monday, but owner Shaheen Ferdowsi decided to keep it open for the game, even as other Iranian-owned businesses rejected the idea. <\/p>\n He left the watch party in the hands of his employees, since his mother had managed to snag tickets to the actual game and 40-person bus of his cousins, other relatives and family friends shuttled over together to the game and back. Ferdowsi said he was excited to be surrounded by thousands rooting for the Iran team.<\/p>\n \u201cAnywhere there\u2019s a lot of Iranians there\u2019s going to be chaos,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n After the game, he said he and his family had been \u201cecstatic all night.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll be honest, it was electrifying being there,\u201d Ferdowsi said. \u201cThe majority of that stadium was Iranian. … Everyone was looking so sexy, so happy supporting each other. For me, that was a major milestone in my life seeing that.\u201d<\/p>\n For Sunday\u2019s game between Iran and Belgium, he said he wants to extend the cafe\u2019s watch party to the parking lot in order to accommodate some 200 people. <\/p>\n \u201cThere was so much interest and people were calling all day yesterday,\u201d he said. \u201cThis time I don\u2019t want to have to say no to our people.\u201d<\/p>\n Sarah Irani, 48, who wore tri-color green, red and white ribbons in her hair, said the cafe offered a unique space that differed from some older businesses in Westwood, nicknamed Tehrangeles. <\/p>\n \u201cIt has a younger, more welcoming vibe and it feels very inclusive and a place to share happiness and not to nitpick and tear anyone apart,\u201d Irani said. <\/p>\n At the end of the game, in which Iran rallied for a 2-2 draw with New Zealand, Parvin shook her head in frustration. <\/p>\n She said the team was greatly set back by the myriad obstacles it faced, having to relocate its base camp from Arizona to Tijuana<\/a>, struggling to get its full staff into the U.S. amid visa scrutiny and fielding the suggestion<\/a> from President Trump that the team wouldn\u2019t be safe if it chose to play.<\/p>\n She said players likely felt they couldn\u2019t fight back vigorously, feeling as most new immigrants to the U.S. do, that they must behave.<\/p>\n \u201cThey had to try so hard. Emotionally they aren\u2019t 100% ready,\u201d Parvin said. \u201cIt\u2019s not right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At Meymuni Cafe, nestled in the West Los Angeles corridor anchoring the city\u2019s vast Iranian diaspora, cheers broke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[423,19378,66770,67273,147529,146625,48,52,51,47,50,49,98469,47664,147528,15158,21670,427,2281,81618,5393],"class_list":["post-363036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-game","tag-iran","tag-iranian-people","tag-iranians","tag-israeli-flag","tag-l-a-iranians","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-meymuni-cafe","tag-new-zealand","tag-parvin","tag-sister","tag-stadium","tag-team","tag-u-s","tag-watch-party","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}