TWO STOPPAGE-TIME goals and a red card, tears of joy and pain, wild celebrations and gut-wrenching mourning, the Iran-Wales encounter was a slow-burning game that went bonkers in the dying minutes, with Iran belting two goals in the last three minutes of the game.
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For much of the match, Wales were clutching at the straws. After goalkeeper Wayne Hennessy’s hideous red-card (first of the tournament) inviting tackle (karate chop, kung-fu kick, call it what you want) on Mehdi Taremi in the 84th minute of the game, they melted in the heat of Iran’s dynamism. So blatant was the red-card offence that the intervention of VAR seemed redundant. The Iranian was searing down the right flank, unattended, when Hennessy charged down the ground and flung his boots at Taremi, crashing onto his chest. Taremi, immediately, plunged to the ground like a tree felled. Why the referee, initially, brandished just a yellow card was baffling. The offence was two-fold. A) He denied a clear goal-scoring opportunity; B) He brutally felled Taremi. So obvious the misdemeanour was the Wales players fairly raised a protest.
The moment injected life into the match, that was meandering to a draw. Harnessing the one-man advantage, Iran launched wave after wave of attacks. Mehdi Torabi could have scored soon upon resumption, but his thrustful drive just flew wide of the right-hand post. Wales were in frantic mode, teetering and tottering, trapped in a collective brain-fade that they could not escape. Their sole intention seemed to be to waste time and somehow scrape. The idea of a goal ceased to exist. But so relentless Iran were that they could not be denied forever. The moment arrived eight minutes deep into extra time, from a Wales mistake. Joe Allen’s sloppy clearance fell onto the path of the industrious Rouzbeh Cheshmi, 25 yards from the goal. Unchallenged, he tagged the ball a few yards further and smacked a crisp curler away from Danny Ward’s stretched fingertips.
A huge win for IR Iran! 👏#FIFAWorldCup | #Qatar2022
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— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) November 25, 2022
The Iran dugout and the crowd went berserk. In the backdrop of the unrest back home, after the thrashing meted out by England, the goal was a cathartic release of joy. So long the celebrations were that the referee had to order them back to resuming. By then, Wales looked bereft, dispirited and disillusioned. They had just one alternative, throw the numbers upfront, hound the Iranian defence in the hope that they would crack. They didn’t and in the inevitable counter, Ramin Rezaeian, the diligent right-back doubled the lead, 11 minutes into the elongated stoppage time that has become a feature of the tournament. The goal was delightful for the cheekiness, as Rezaeian, latching onto a square pass from Karim Ansarifard, lured Ward into him and just lifted the ball over, a goal of pure impudence. And cue the whistle blew.
As the Wales team stuttered to the ground, their first World Cup in 64 years in tatters, Iranians rekindled the dream of reaching knockouts for the first time in six appearances, should they beat USA, a game of diplomatic undercurrents. This was a balm for the troubled nation, a statement that the team is not riven with rifts, an assertion that they are undistracted by the politics back home, a vindication that they have recuperated from the monstrous defeat at the hands of England.
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What a moment for IR Iran! 🇮🇷#FIFAWorldCup | #Qatar2022 pic.twitter.com/2OLKu7hlLp
— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) November 25, 2022
At the start of the game, they kept politics aside and sang the national anthem, though some Iranians in the stands booed it. An Iranian fan, who flashed a t-shirt with the name “Mahsa Amini-22”, the 22-year-old who died in police custody after she was arrested for not wearing hijab, was thrown out of the stadium. Some of them booed at coach Carlos Quieroz too, who had told the Iranian fans to stay off the stadium if they don’t want to support the team. “To make it seem that they (players) are the only people who should be responsible for all the human problems of the world, I think you will agree that it is not fair,” he had said.
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The stern words were followed by a stern performance where Iran pulled all the strings in the midfield. Even if you discount the mad last 15 minutes, Iran were the more dominant side. They were unfortunate to have not scored earlier. In space of 15 seconds, they rattled the post twice, a goal was ruled off-side and they continuously threatened to rip Wales’s defence open. But for cutting edge upfront, they would have wrapped up the game long ago.
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Quieroz was a satisfied man: “It was a wonderful day to us – we [stuck] to football, and I don’t have words to say thank you to the players. They were brilliant, they deserve all the respect. People will understand that these boys love to play football,” he would say.
He was asked about his message to people back home: “The players, they deserve to be supported. We did it for them, we did it for them. That’s the only reason we’re here, to play for the fans.” And they did play dynamic football, an entirely different side that took the field against England.