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Iran didn’t do a whole lot on the sport front for the first couple decades after the 1979 Revolution.  Fans in the country still speak excitedly about their breakout year in 1998 where they qualified for the World Cup for the first time since the Shah was in power by narrowly edging out Australia in an away playoff series.  They went on to score one of their two World Cup wins against the US in group play.  They’ve qualified fairly consistently since then, but have never progressed past the group stage, scoring their only other win in 2018 against Morocco.

This year, under previous coach Carlos Queiroz, and led by two strong attackers, Sardar Azmoun and Mehdi Taremi, they hope to hold England to a draw and then beat either the US or Wales for the chance to move out of Group B into knockout play.  However, given the unrest in Iran following the death of Jina Amini (pictured above) which has included raiding the home of Ali Karimi, possibly the most successful and beloved former Irani footballer, the arrest and detention of other prominent Irani footballers who have been critical of the regime, and the effective gag order that exists on the current team (although they’ve still managed some gestures of solidarity with the protesters which hopefully won’t get them arrested when they get home) there’s a lot of distractions for this team.

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Iran is a country where the hard-line government is vastly out of step with the vast majority of the population, which is a shame as the country has a lot of amazing history, culture, and food, as well as lovely people who are trying to live their lives the best they can in an environment of massive inflation, repressive morality police, and a government that routinely resorts to torture and lethal force to maintain power.  The rest of this preview will be some selected pictures from my visit to Iran earlier this year, these are the people we support when we support the protesters in whatever way we can.

This is a skatepark in Tehran, right next to the Planetarium – lots of kids having a great time, both boys and girls.  According to Human Rights Activists in Iran, at least 58 children have been killed in the current wave of protests.

Iranis eat more rice per capita than anywhere else, and it’s delicious because there’s lots of butter and saffron in it.  Also lots of sweet drinks and sugary desserts and candy and saffron sugar sticks for your tea as well as sugar cubes for your tea.  It’s estimated that 11.4% of the adult population in Iran is diabetic.  

Why yes, I DO want to buy some adorable and colorful baby chickens!

Iran is predominantly Shia Muslim, and they venerate past Imams with shrines and holy sites like Qom (pictured) in a way that is somewhat analogous to Catholic veneration of saints.  This practice is part of the conflict with Sunni Muslims, with fundamentalist movements like the Wahhabists considering Shia Muslims to not be real Muslims.

Polo was invented in Iran.  This fountain, which is now in the main square of Isfahan, used to be a polo field.  During the Safavid empire, the occupants of the Aali Qapu palace could watch polo from the veranda, and travel to their private mosque via tunnels under the polo field.

Saffron ice cream in fresh carrot juice.  Unexpectedly delicious, but I’ve been unable to recreate it at home.