SEATTLE -- Add their own fate at the 2026 FIFA World Cup to the long list of things Iran can't control. Following their 1-1 draw with Egypt on Friday night -- a result that sees the Pharaohs advance from Group G in second place on goal difference to leaders Belgium -- Team Melli will now have to wait on Saturday's results to know if they can stick around for another game or more. But if Algeria and Croatia avoid defeat against Austria and Ghana respectively, and Congo DR beat Uzbekistan, they're going home.
In a twisted way, it's fitting, because, writ large, Iran have been able to control very little in the past few months.
Not their World Cup preparations. While other teams played proper friendlies, they had to square off against youth sides in Tijuana; and while others got to rest before games and recover after them, they had to fly in and out of the United States based on strict guidelines laid out by the Department of Homeland Security. (That's what happens when your country is at war with the nation hosting your games.)
Not the VAR decision against Egypt in injury time that wiped out Shoja Khalilzadeh's bundled winner by a matter of millimeters due to offside.
Not the physics determined by the angle and velocity at which, minutes later, the ball struck Saeid Ezatolahi and caromed off the crossbar, turning a dramatic buzzer-beater into a pedestrian goal kick by a matter of a few degrees.
"I have learned that we are not just oppressed at this World Cup, we are also unlucky," a dejected Iran coach Amir Ghalenoei, referring to the restrictions placed on his team said after the game. "And, of course, we have a war back home."
Pedants will point out that, actually, there was one thing his team could have controlled: the penalty that was awarded to them after 11 minutes which Egypt keeper Mostafa Shobeir saved from Mehdi Taremi, and which would have made the injury-time drama and misfortune moot. But that would be missing the point. Football and fandom don't work that way.
More angles of Mostafa Ahmed Shobeir's penalty save 🧤 pic.twitter.com/L1VlHpVy6W
— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) June 27, 2026
By the end of a night that began with red-clad Egypt fans -- some of them in faux-Tutankhamen headgear -- mingling with Seattle's Pride week revelers and anti-regime Iran supporters with their pre-revolutionary flags and pictures of the Shah, all that remained for neutrals to contemplate was the (correct) VAR decision and Ezatolahi's rattling of the woodwork. Two moments of unscripted drama that reminded you of the infinitesimal gap between ecstasy and agony. And how, often, we don't know which side of that gap fate will put us on.
The equation didn't quite work in reverse for Egypt -- they knew they had qualified before kickoff because Uruguay had lost to Spain -- but, still, there's a big difference between finishing second and facing Australia undefeated and third place with your tail between your legs in a game where you were outfought when it mattered: the Expected Goals (xG) tally read 0.84 to 1.97 for Iran, who also missed four "big chances."
Egypt coach Hossam Hassan lamented losing three players to injury (including Mohamed Salah, who says he should be OK for the next game) and talked about how his team are getting stronger in the tournament. But as to those interminable moments when VAR was doing its thing, he admitted: "I was thanking God for what he had done for us and hoping."
Egypt haven't been fired on all cylinders in this group stage, but that doesn't change the fact that they're unbeaten and advance to the knockouts for the first time in their history. And they can certainly get better.
As for Iran, it does feel as if fate has joined governments, history and circumstance in turning them into pawns. But even in that, the picture is a little more complex. Their anthem gets booed by a sizable portion of their own fans, who want to express their opposition to the current government. Yet once the game begins, the support for the players themselves is near total and full-throated. (Protesting a regime is one thing. Spending hundreds of dollars to buy a ticket so you can do it within earshot of your countrymen, and to a team your parents and grandparents supported, is another: Most folks are too short on money and too long on common sense to do that.)
Chants of "Iran!" rang out in the Seattle night, echoing off the brickwork of Pioneer Square, throughout the game. Once it became clear that Egypt were going to finish second, come what may, it felt to some (like Ghalenoei, who pointed it out after the match) that neutrals and even some Pharaohs fans were joining in. Certainly everybody, regardless of who they were supporting, was swept up in the perverse drama of the VAR check and its emotional 180-degree turn of an outcome.
"The world is now proud of Iran and of our team," Ghalenoei mused. "The whole world has fallen in love with us."
He's probably going too far when he says "the whole world." But do most people love an underdog, especially one that -- through no fault of their own -- get batted around from pillar to post by forces both physical and metaphysical beyond their control and keep persevering? You bet they do.
