Iran's World Cup Chaos Deepens as Team Ordered to Leave U.S.
The final whistle had barely settled over SoFi Stadium when Iran’s players were told to move. Not to the dressing room. To the airport.
A few hours after a draining, politically charged 2-2 draw with New Zealand on Monday night, Iran’s World Cup squad was ordered to leave the United States and fly back to its training base in Tijuana, ripping up carefully laid recovery plans and plunging an already chaotic campaign into deeper uncertainty.
Coach Amir Ghalenoei did not name who gave the instruction. He didn’t need to. The frustration in his voice told its own story.
“They didn’t even give us time to recover,” he said through an interpreter. “After the game today, they said to us, ‘You have to leave immediately.’ It’s very important for us to have time for recovery, (but) we are asked to get on a plane and return to our camp in Tijuana, and we are really troubled by that.”
Iran had expected to stay overnight in California, recover properly, and return to Mexico around lunchtime on Tuesday. Instead, players were hustled toward another 140-mile trip, straight into the night, with legs cramping and minds still racing from a wild contest and an even more intense backdrop.
A World Cup under siege
This is no ordinary World Cup for Iran. Their entire cycle has been shaken since the U.S. and Israel began a war against Iran on Feb. 28, a conflict that has shadowed every decision around Team Melli’s participation.
Iran chose to compete after FIFA rejected its request to move all three group-stage games out of the U.S. The team has been operating under layers of bureaucracy, diplomatic tension and logistical disruption ever since.
Captain Mehdi Taremi described a five-hour ordeal just to get from Tijuana to the Los Angeles area on Sunday — a journey that should feel routine, not like an international border saga.
“We don’t know why they are returning us, to be honest,” Ghalenoei said. “I think it’s very strange. It seems like others are doing the planning for us. The decision-making for us is being made elsewhere.”
He laid out the original plan clearly: arrive two nights before the opener, stay after the match, fly back rested. None of it has held.
“We have no idea why,” he said, before adding a line that summed up the mood in the camp: “I think our team is perhaps the most oppressed in the World Cup.”
Missing staff, missing support
The problems do not stop at travel. Iran is also operating without several key staff members, including the president of the country’s football federation, coaching support staff and media officials, all of whom were denied U.S. visas.
For a team already juggling political pressure, that absence has cut into preparation and routine.
“We have to leave Los Angeles right now, and it’s not good for us,” Taremi said about an hour after full time. “I think FIFA have to help us more than this. ... Everything is like a disaster, actually, for us.”
Ghalenoei said the lack of proper build-up and constant disruption showed on the pitch. Players cramped in mild conditions, substitutions made not for tactical tweaks but for bodies breaking down.
“Before the game, I said we haven’t had time to adjust because of the travel,” he explained. “Many of our players, they had cramps, and that’s why we had to substitute them. So it wasn’t for technical reasons that we made substitutions. It was because of the injury and because of the cramp.”
They will be examined by the technical staff, he added, but the pattern is clear in his mind: delayed arrivals, forced early departures, and no real window for recovery.
“They are making the situation more difficult.”
A divided crowd, a united roar
Inside SoFi Stadium, the football itself fought for space amid all that noise. The atmosphere crackled from the first note of the anthem to the last kick.
Los Angeles is home to the largest Iranian population outside Iran, and the stadium reflected that reality in full color and full volume. It was not a simple home game. It was something more complicated, and more raw.
Outside, several hundred Iranian Americans protested against the current Iranian government. Inside, many fans turned their backs and jeered during the national anthem, a stark, visual rejection of the regime.
Once the ball rolled, the tone changed. The vast majority roared for the players, for the shirt, for Team Melli.
“It was an incredible atmosphere in the game, all 90 minutes,” Taremi said. “It was like at home for us.”
On the pitch, Iran stumbled, then surged
On paper, a 2-2 draw with New Zealand — ranked 65 places lower by FIFA — is a poor start. On the grass, it was a comeback that hinted at resilience.
Elijah Just struck early in each half for New Zealand, twice silencing the noise and twice forcing Iran to chase. The pressure built, and eventually Iran hit back with two moments of genuine quality.
Ramin Rezaeian dragged them level the first time, scoring with the outside of his boot, a deft, angled finish that lit up the end packed with Iranian flags.
Then came the equalizer that truly ignited the stadium. In the 64th minute, Mohammad Mohebi met a perfect cross from Rezaeian with a thumping header, the kind of goal that makes a crowd feel like it’s lifting the roof.
Mohebi’s celebration sparked as much conversation as his finish. He appeared to mime the shooting of a gun, drawing criticism online, then followed it with the “ice in my veins” gesture made famous by Los Angeles Lakers guard D’Angelo Russell, before finally shaping his hands into a heart for the fans.
“The Iranians who live in Los Angeles, they make a great atmosphere,” Mohebi said. “That celebration, it comes in the mind, and I did like this” — motioning to his arm — “for all the fans. Just a celebration.”
When the whistle went, players from both sides embraced, swapped shirts and shared handshakes. Ghalenoei sat alone in the dugout, watching as his players circled the pitch, applauding the thousands who stayed to wave flags and bellow songs into the California night.
The table, and the road ahead
The group is finely poised. Iran, Belgium, Egypt and New Zealand all sit on one point after the opening round. On paper, Iran’s hardest work is still to come.
Next up is Belgium in Inglewood on Sunday, a step up in quality and physicality. After that, a trip north to face Egypt in Seattle. Both fixtures look tougher than New Zealand. Both will be played under the same cloud of logistical and political strain.
Every marginal gain matters at a World Cup: sleep, recovery, routine. Iran are being denied all three.
“We’re facing more hurdles, but we’re not going to let that stop us from doing our best,” Ghalenoei said. He still found room for pride in the spectacle his team helped produce. “I think today was one of the best games in the World Cup so far, and I think the fans really enjoyed it inside the stadium and outside the stadium.”
The question now is stark. If this is what Iran can muster through cramps, protests, visa rows and overnight flights, what might they look like if the football were allowed to breathe on its own?
