Iran slams World Cup travel chaos after draw with New Zealand — 'Everything is a disaster'
· Yahoo Sports
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Shortly after opening World Cup play with a disappointing 2-2 draw with New Zealand on Monday night, Iranian players and coaches slammed the treatment that their team has received in the U.S. so far.
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They argued that Iran was at a competitive disadvantage because the team was ordered to fly into Los Angeles on the eve of the New Zealand match and fly straight back to its base camp in Tijuana late Monday night.
“They didn’t even give us time to recover,” Iran coach Amir Ghalenoei told reporters through an interpreter. “After the game today, they said to us, ‘You have to leave immediately.’ It’s very important for us to have timefor recovery, (but) we are asked to get on a plane and return to our camp in Tijuana, and we are really troubled by that.”
Neither Ghalenoei nor Iranian striker Mehdi Taremi specified who demanded Iran leave the Los Angeles area earlier than it wanted rather than maximizing recovery by spending the night.
“My friend, I’m a player,” Taremi said. “I’m not the president of the federation. I cannot answer that question because I don’t know that.”
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Iran’s nightmare travel schedule is a product of geopolitical tension with the U.S. throughout a months-long war between the two nations. The U.S. declined to host the Iranian national team for the entirety of the World Cup even though all three of Iran’s group stage matches are on American soil, the first two in the Los Angeles area and the final one in Seattle.
While FIFA rejected Iran's request to have its group stage matches moved to Mexico, the parties last month reached a logistical compromise to allow Iran to stay as close to the U.S. as possible. FIFA granted Iran permission to move its training camp from Tucson to Tijuana, a Mexican city adjacent to the California border.
The 140-mile trip from Tijuana to Los Angeles on Sunday took five hours, Taremi said. When asked the cause of the delay, Taremi hinted that security checks were the primary issue.
“It’s a bad situation,” Taremi said. “We just try to rise above the situation. From two months ago, last month, we have had a lot of problems. It’s so bad and it affects our team.”
Iranian players raised some of these issues with FIFA president Gianni Infantino in their locker room after the match, Taremi and teammate Mohammad Mohebi said. Infantino, according to Taremi, responded that he wants to try to help.
The other complaint from Iranian players has been the visa situation for their traveling party. All 26 Iranian players have received entry into the U.S., but some support staffers and Iranian soccer officials planning to accompany the team were rejected.
"What we're not going to allow," U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this month, "is for them to embed in their delegation a bunch of people that we know have nothing to do with athletics and have ties to the [Islamic Republic Guards Corps] or things of that nature."
Countered Taremi on Monday, “I think FIFA has to help us more than this. ... Everything is a disaster, actually, for us.”
Iran faced a pair of one-goal deficits against New Zealand but fought back to salvage a point against the lowest-ranked of the 48 teams in the World Cup field. Mohebbi scored the tying goal in the 64th minute, powerfully heading home a perfect cross from teammate Ramin Rezaeian.
After the game, Mohebbi argued Iran was not at its best because the travel schedule had taken its toll.
“We get tired, you know?” he said.
Taremi hoped for help from FIFA now that Iran and the U.S. have reached a tentative deal to end the war.
“If they help us, we would much appreciate that,” Taremi said. “If no one helps us, doesn’t matter. We have to stay back-to-back behind each other.”