Today at 2 p.m. EST, amid a politically contentious World Cup, the United States men’s national soccer team (USMNT) will take on Iran in Doha. This is must-watch television. For the U.S., it’s a win-or-go-home situation against one of our chief geopolitical adversaries.
Meanwhile, what’s at stake for the Iranian team goes beyond the outcome of the game. Since the start of the tournament, the ongoing anti-government Mahsa Amini protests have loomed large over the Iranian team from across the Gulf. First, Ehsan Hajsafi, the captain of Iran’s national team, voiced his support for the demonstrators. Then, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) threatened players’ families after the team declined to sing the country’s national anthem during its opening match against England. The IRGC is intimidating players with the prospect of imprisonment and torture lest they think about breaking decorum during the ceremony before the game against the United States. Now, USMNT is expressing regret for posting an Iranian flag with the country’s emblem removed from the flag as a show of “support for the women in Iran fighting for basic human rights.”
USMNT should have never apologized. But putting aside this pathetic display of cowardice, the odious cloud hovering over the Qatari-hosted competition, FIFA’s ridiculous anti-Western apologetics, and the inane woke virtue-signaling in response, it’s important to watch today. Doing so is a matter of patriotic allegiance to the Stars and Stripes and a show of solidarity with the Iranian people, whose discontent Iran’s team has been punished for supporting, in their valiant struggle for freedom against their totalitarian theocratic overlords.