1) The Iran players look like totally normal, modern soccer players. Many are, I daresay, quite handsome, but they all have modern haircuts and react like other soccer players to goals (and fouls!), and it all seemed as if you were watching any other game. Iran's first goal was, in fact, fairly spectacular, from the initial switch of play to the lightning cross to the pinpoint header.
Moreover, the announcers discussed where some of them played their club careers and it was quite a mix, from Europe to the Arabian peninsula, to Russia, etc. Hardly the pariah nation we've been sold. Lastly, the coaches also looked normal and friendly - hard to paint them as the "severe" coaches/ party minders like in the old Soviet days.
2) The stadium (in Los Angeles) was full of pro-Iranian fans. Obviously, the vast majority of these were anti-regime Iranians in the diaspora. There were plenty of pre-Islamic Republic flags on display, and flags that just said "IRAN" in the middle rather than the Shah's flag or the IR flag. But there were also quite a few IR flags as well. When the cameras scanned the crowd there were pro-Iranian team supporters of all kinds. Needless to say, they just looked like soccer fans as well.
The whole affair looked so...I dunno...human. Hard to dehumanize people when you see them with your own eyes doing stuff that you do.
Kudos also to the New Zealanders for the great game.
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