John Riordan: Iran-US showdown brings split loyalties and political overtones

POLITICAL FOOTBALL: An image of Christian Pulisic of USA adorns a skyscraper in West Bay ahead of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 in Doha. Picture: Mike Hewitt - FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images

After a seismic failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, an almost completely regenerated United States squad flew to Doha last week with the second youngest average age of player, a shade older than Ghana.

2017’s failure sparked a clearout just as their most talented generation was beginning to bloom. Meanwhile, the awarding of the 2026 World Cup to the US, Canada and Mexico that same year offered added tailwind.

Gregg Berhalter took the reins a year later and the eight-year plan was simple: get this group ready for a tilt on home turf. Qualifying out of Group B on November 29th is the nearest achievable goal on the way to grander ambition.

Iconic former US international Tab Ramos is widely credited for having a hand in much of the development of this young squad, having guided the nation’s Under 20 teams to four U20 World Cups in the 2010s while also working elsewhere behind the scenes.

Ramos lined out for his country in the 1990, 1994 and 1998 World Cups, the middle one of those ending infamously for him on the other side of Leonardo’s flailing elbow during the loss to Brazil.

A year after recovering from that skull fracture, Ramos was the first ever player signed to the newly formed MLS. Soon he would connect for the first time with a football man who is still by his side today.

Utah-born Iranian-American Omid Namazi grew up in Tehran and returned to the country of his birth for a football scholarship at West Virginia at the age of 18. On his way to a full-time coaching career which began in the late 90s and which has brought him from the US to Iran and back again, he amassed several professional and semi-professional clubs, both regular and indoor.

One of his pitstops was a loan spell at the MetroStars for their inaugural 1996 season during which he fatefully came to work for the first time with Ramos and then MetroStars manager Carlos Queiroz. The Portuguese man was drafted in after just eight games of that first season to rescue a dire situation which had failed to meet the expectations of some high-profile recruitment.

Fast forward to the early 2010s and Namazi found himself reunited with Queiroz for Iran’s 2014 qualifying campaign. Goalkeeping coach Dan Gaspar sought out Namazi who had recently taken on an assistant coaching job at a club in Iran, his first time back there in 37 years.

“They were looking for a coach who could bridge the gap between them and the players in Iran as well as the federation,” Namazi recalled for me by phone on Wednesday evening. Today he still works with Ramos but now at USL side Hartford.

“So I guess I was a perfect candidate knowing these coaches that know me and trust in me while also obviously knowing the language and the culture in Iran. It was a perfect match.

“After the conclusion of that club season, I started working with the national team until right before the World Cup in 2014.” Namazi missed out on the trip to Brazil due to a dispute over pay but enjoyed learning under the tutelage of Queiroz.

“It was a learning experience for me,” he said. “He’s obviously a great coach, a great mentor. He has his way and style of play. He was a perfect fit for what Iran needed and the national team needed at that time because there's a lack of sort of structure within the team.

“Carlos was really good at that. He gave them structure, gave them belief and we qualified in 2014 by beating Korea in Korea, which was an unbelievable feat.” 

He returned to the States to work with the women’s national team for a spell before reuniting with Ramos in US Soccer's underage development system.

You’d think he would be going into this tournament as a highly involved observer with evenly split loyalties but you'd be wrong. The US play Iran in the third round of Group B games in less than a fortnight in what could be an exciting showdown with overtones that were already assuredly geopolitical when the draw was first made.

But given the recent turmoil in the country in which Namazi grew up, it has become a lot more complicated than that.

The last two months have seen some of the largest protests in years at the regime there after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in the custody of the country’s so-called morality police for apparently not wearing her hijab correctly.

This week, Queiroz claimed his players are "free to protest" regarding women’s rights in their country during the World Cup but the ire of many Iranians, including Namazi, has been raised by the visit of the squad to meet President Ebrahim Raisi before travelling to Qatar.

Namazi thinks the players should have made their own ultimate peaceful protest by going on strike this month rather than making such a public display of loyalty to the regime.

“They should have been with the people,” he lamented.

“They shook hands with [Raisi] and they bowed down to him and pictures came out from that. I think it’s going to have a direct effect on the players’ psyche because they know their people back home are not very fond of them right now. They didn't stand up to the regime. And they didn't stand up with the people.” 

Bayer Leverkusen forward Sardar Azmoun has been vocal in his opposition to the point that there was talk of pressure on Queiroz not to select him.

“You have domestic players who have spoken and have been arrested because they've been out on the streets with people. And then you have these players who are at the World Cup.

“I'm the biggest supporter of Iran football but this has really put a bad taste in my mouth. This is a very critical time in the history of the country because for 43 years, an oppressive regime has been in charge and now the people are standing up against them.

“I believe there's going to be a change but who knows, these guys are brutal, you don't know what they'll do.

“So you know, it's unfortunate because obviously I have a lot of affection for Iran, Iranian people, for my family that's from there and lives there.

“But at the same time, you know, I've lived most of my life here and I've worked with these young US players and I want to see them succeed.” 

@JohnWRiordan