SEATTLE. It was a game in advance that was about everything but football.
But regardless of which flag you brought to Lumen Field this Friday evening, it felt like football, at least for the moment, actually had to take focus.
For this match deserved limelight.
Then you were suddenly on the other side of the continent. And of course it didn’t immediately feel like you had traveled through the same country after a 4.5 hour flight across North America, across in a northwesterly direction.
17 degrees instead of 35.
Conifers and greenery instead of desert and parking lots.
Life, movement and pedestrians instead of motorways, barbecues and Uber trips as soon as you stepped out of a door.
I have landed in Seattle. And it only took a few hours of watching soccer fans and tourists eating award-winning clam chowder and filming flying fish in Pike Place Market to feel that this is a bustling place I would have liked to stay longer.
Having said that, it is a very special match you are here for. For reasons other than football.
As is unfortunately now always the case when Iran is going to play.
Seattle! A city with a coast. Photo: Makoto Asahara
“It was pretty chill”
In case you missed it, Egypt faced Iran in a match which the organizers, even before the draw was made, decided to market in rainbow colors as the match coincided with the city’s pride festival.
As Iran and Egypt are two of the World Cup’s worst possible advocates for the rights of LGBTQ people, this has not gone down well with the two national confederations, who pressured Fifa to stop rainbow flags and planned demonstrations.
Something Fifa did not agree to do when they allowed the rainbow flag to be brought into WC stadiums
So controversy, protests and conflict outside the arena?
No, not that much at all.
– There is more happening around this match than previous matches here. But it’s still pretty chill, says a British journalist colleague, who has been in Seattle much longer than I myself have had time to hang, to me in the press room.
I can only agree from the quarter-long, crowded walk to the arena and the impressions well in the stands.
Pride flags were handed out in Pioneer Square. Photo: Makoto Asahara
Rainbow flags were distributed
In the avenue up towards the massive Lumen Field, small pride flags are handed out to those who want them. Even some with Iranian and Egyptian match shirts take the opportunity to take one.
Once in the arena, a handful of the larger flags appear in the crowd, perhaps especially during the national anthems.
But there is another flag that is more visible. Both on and off the stands.
– There is so much else to be angry about. This is the least to worry about, said an Iranian supporter I spoke to earlier in town regarding the organizer’s pride packaging of the event.
Well, there is another non-football related factor here.
Iranian protests outside Lumen Field. Photo: Makoto Asahara
Must be terrible playing for Iran
To give myself into the complex Iran issue is not something I will do in this forum. But all I can say is that there were many, many Iranian flags with lion logos (even in a combined version with the American one) around the arena, in the arena and more or less everywhere.
In all the pride matches, it was easy to forget that it is the big topic that characterized Team Melli’s entire championship. The fact that it’s a divided country in the middle of a war with the nation they’re playing their World Cup in – and only get to go in for a limited time to do so.
It must be really terrible to be an Iranian national football player.
The non-football related questions they get may be both relevant and unavoidable, but at the same time one understands the desire to want to talk about their football rather than all the misery surrounding it.
But here they showed that they wanted to let football take the front seat.
Because this was a match to watch.
Stole the show
It swung in all directions in a regular sea battle. Polish referee Szymon Marciniak, a man not averse to taking over a football match, did his best to contribute and take focus as he both awarded penalties and threw yellow cards left and right.
Iran were chasing a win to secure promotion. Egypt, already clear, was fighting to defend a first place.
No matter what flag you brought into the arena, there were boos when the signal was called for rekla…sorry, water break at 1-1 with bids for more.
I understand that.
Because even if it wasn’t always beautiful and high quality, it was undeniably emotional, intense and dramatic football you didn’t want to have to pause.
There was no shortage of drama in the second half either, with a late Iranian goal ruled out for minimal offside.
So when the final whistle sounded, the audience had received value (to the extent that you can get it with the ticket prices) for the entrance fee.
Because this was second drama, emotional football and a really entertaining match.
Despite everything around, it still became the essence of this particular evening.
