On June 21, 1998, before the ball rolled at the Gerland stadium in Lyon, Iranian players entered the field carrying white flowers for the athletes of the American team, in a gesture that, at that time, placed the match for the second round of the World Cup in a scenario far beyond football.
Twenty-eight years later, the Iranian team will play the World Cup again surrounded by the same political weight, this time, however, under even more sensitive conditions, with the competition hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Qualified for its seventh World Cup, Iran confirmed that it will compete part of its campaign on American soil, but demanded formal guarantees from the hosts regarding visa issuance, delegation security and respect for the country’s flag and national anthem.
The demand came weeks after Canada made it difficult for the president of the Iranian federation, Mehdi Taj, to enter, after immigration authorities highlighted the leader’s links with the Revolutionary Guard, classified as a terrorist organization by the USA and Canada.
The uncertainty gained strength in February, when the military escalation in the Middle East, following attacks carried out by the USA and Israel, began to raise doubts about the Iranian presence in the tournament.
On the eve of that first clash between the two countries in World Cups, as special envoy to France, Clóvis Rossi wrote in Sheet that “football could be the chance for peace”, when narrating the attempted rapprochement between Washington and Tehran in front of the world’s cameras.
The reading echoed all the way to the White House. Days before the clash, then-president Bill Clinton bought the idea when he said that the game between the two teams “could help improve the relationship between the two countries”.
Almost three decades later, the possibility of a new meeting between Iranians and Americans — this time only in a knockout match — shows that that chance ended up wasted.
For historian Kristina Spohr, professor of international history at the London School of Economics, few sporting clashes have preserved the same political weight for as long as the USA and Iran.
“What makes this confrontation so unique is that it never just belongs to the present. Each new encounter between the US and Iran reactivates layers of diplomatic memory, regional conflict and symbolic dispute accumulated over decades,” Kristina explained to Sheet.
That Sunday in Lyon, less than two decades after the Islamic Revolution severed diplomatic relations between the two countries, the game seemed to carry much more than three points.
“In 1998, the symbolism was concentrated inside the stadium. In 2026, it starts much earlier than that, because territory, mobility and access have also become part of the political message”, added the professor.
That story, however, did not end in Lyon, with the 2-1 Iranian victory, and gained new chapters again in Qatar, in 2022, when flags, protests and social media reignited the friction between the two sides.
On the eve of the clash in the last World Cup – won by the Americans 1-0 –, US Soccer (the United States Football Federation) published on its social networks the Iranian flag without the emblem of the Islamic Republic, saying it supported the protests that took over the country after the death of Mahsa Amini. Tehran accused the Americans of disrespecting national symbols and took the case to FIFA, opening a new diplomatic crisis during the competition.
Now, more than the possibility of a provocation, the USA will be in almost total control of the competition, defining control of borders, visas, airports and tournament logistics.
The Iranian team will open its campaign against New Zealand, in Los Angeles, face Belgium, again in California, and end the first phase against Egypt, in Seattle.
Nicholas Cull, British historian and one of the world’s leading experts in public diplomacy, soft power and international communication, states that, when the host country is also part of the political conflict, sport stops being just competition and starts to function as a visible extension of public diplomacy.
“Sport does not eliminate geopolitical conflicts. What it does is move them to a space where symbols, gestures and public perception start to matter as much as formal diplomacy. In 2026, in the case of the United States and Iran, this starts before the ball even rolls,” said Cull.
In the months leading up to the tournament, the mere Iranian presence on American soil stopped being a sporting hypothesis and became the subject of statements from the White House, the State Department and immigration authorities.
In one of the most recent questions to President Donald Trump, the Republican outsourced his position to FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who had assured Iran’s presence at the World Cup during the organization’s last congress.
“If Gianni said that, that’s fine with me… let them play,” Trump said.
The presidential opening, however, was accompanied by a tougher message from the State Department. Days earlier, secretary Marco Rubio stated that players and members of the technical committee would be welcome, but mentioned that members of the delegation with ties to the Revolutionary Guard could be denied entry into the country.
On the other hand, Tehran responded by transforming participation in the World Cup into a matter of national sovereignty, with public demands on institutional treatment, delegation security and visa issuance.
“We will definitely participate in the 2026 World Cup, but the hosts must take into account our concerns,” the Iranian federation said on its website. “We will participate in the tournament, but without any retreat in relation to our beliefs, culture and convictions.”
For Brazilian researcher Vitória Baldin, football rarely creates geopolitical crises, but it tends to amplify disputes that are already underway long before the kickoff.
“Major sporting events tend to function less as the origin of crises and more as showcases of conflicts that governments, societies and athletes already carry into the tournament”, stated Vitória.
In Professor Simon Chadwick’s assessment, the 2026 World Cup will say less about football and more about how great powers use sporting events to project leadership, legitimacy and global influence.
“In 1998, the United States and Iran met on the field. In 2026, they meet within an architecture of power controlled by the Americans, and this completely changes the political meaning of this reunion.”
If in Lyon the gesture that marked the meeting between Iranians and Americans came before the whistle, with flowers exchanged in front of the cameras, in 2026 the first dispute could begin well before that, in consulates, airports and at the borders of the United States.
