Doha. Sometimes words are not enough to convey what 111 minutes of football can do for one person.
Iran’s fans wept proudly during the playing of the national anthem, frustration during the match and indescribable joy after the final whistle.
If Wales supporters deserve more from their national team, it is nothing compared to what the brave Iranian fans deserve.
Admittedly, I’m a little late today. I breathed in my throat, threw myself into the metro station and boarded a train too narrow to launch at Ahmed Bin Ali Stadium.
In retrospect, it’s nice that it was done that way. In the same carriage were Ali and his friends, who quickly noticed my journalist’s badge.
– Ali said you should write about us today, Iranians.
Obviously, he was not referring to football. One of his friends, draped in an Iranian flag and with a lion in the center, filled them all wanting to bring banners with the words “Women, Life, Freedom” to the premiere against England but was stopped at the door.
Players who moved their lips
However, the message in the stands was not completely erased. Nor against Wales, where cameras captured, among other things, a woman with black tears symbolically streaming down her cheeks. A reminder that Mohsa Amini’s name must not be forgotten, and that fighting at home is more important than just fighting on a soccer field.
– But it would have been nice if the players didn’t sing against England, said Ali shortly before the doors opened at the final station and we parted ways.
Just under a quarter of an hour later, Iran’s senior players moved their lips to the national anthem as they lined up in front of their emotional supporters.
why? We may never know the real reason, but one can speculate an explanation that might involve fear of the regime and its methods of silencing dissidents.
Wells’ big problem
Perhaps Wales hoped the Iranian players would act as bored as they were against England. The reality was very different, and the Welsh supporters, laid out in the blazing sun, knew from the first minute that this could be a tough era.
Union captain Rob Page’s biggest problem is that Joe Allen isn’t fresh enough to get started. It might seem ludicrous for a Swansea player to feature second in value to Gareth Bale, but there were plenty of examples of why in the first half.
Ethan Ampadu and Aaron Ramsey failed to control midfield. Ambado drifted to the right to support Connor Roberts, Ramsey made a deep run a second later. You yourself understand how things will go if Iran takes the ball and restarts.
Fans screamed in frustration
If only Sardar Azmoun hadn’t been so eager to get involved, he would have secured a 1-0 win before half-time. Instead, he played the ball sideways for Ali Gholizadeh who actually pulled it behind the goalkeeper, but without the slightest bit of confidence. He understood that the VAR would not allow the goal for offside. It took a while for the jubilant Iranian fans to realize it was still 0-0.
So far it has been a fairly even match. But something happened in the second half, as if Wells was running out of ideas. Iran has tied fists, and they dream of finishing in both right and left. With a quarter of an hour left in the match, goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey made a massive save by putting his fingers on Saeed Ezzatullah’s goal.
One of the Iranian fans near me in the stands had completely lost his temper and was about to fall off the railings out of sheer frustration. The taste of goal could be felt, but the damned ball didn’t want to go in.
looking for air
Page could do nothing but get coach Joe Allen into a match-up in an attempt to get air. The team was then pushed deeper below the surface when Hennessey, feeling forced out on an Iranian ball deep, collided with Mehdi Taremi and was ruled to illegally deny a goal-scoring opportunity after the referee consulted his monitor.
Thankfully Leicester’s Danny Ward is a solid second keeper but had Wales managed to get a point it would have been incomprehensible.
As the extra minutes ticked away, as Iran’s hopes began to fade, so did it. The moment Rouzbeh Chesme’s shot found its way behind Ward seemed to be going in slow motion. As if the world stopped for half a second and then exploded. Extending Taremi to 2-0 soon after was mostly a revision of numbers. The Welsh players had already given up and walked off the pitch with their faces on the grass.
Crowds of Welsh fans made their way to Qatar to watch their national team play in the World Cup for the first time in 64 years. I can’t help but feel like they deserve more and better than this. Like all the brave Iranians who are demonstrating against the regime’s oppression, the national team deserves to be proud of.