Julia Zonca
SENT TO DOHA
England gets back on its knees in front of Iran which has stopped celebrating goals in a game where gestures count more than actions.
It’s played at the Khalifa Stadium, the only one of the eight venues that wasn’t born with the World Cup, the first with air conditioning, coincidentally a place that has accumulated a minimum of history and perhaps isn’t quite ready to see more. But he won’t be able to avoid it. England-Iran is a territory of protest and many associations organized by expatriate Iranians have announced demonstrations, banners, chants. They move in Doha and also elsewhere, with hashtags waved to occupy social networks in the 90 minutes in which the challenge that cannot, does not want to, stay on the field is played out. It runs away, it comes out, it makes itself felt right now, long before the beginning. And he’s just the number one act in a tournament born to break the mold. When you twist the script then you can’t control it anymore.
Iran has been on the streets since September 16, the day 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was beaten to death for walking around Tehran showing her hair. You lost your life and the country lost its calm, you chose the revolt against the moral police and the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who was invited to Qatar and didn’t show up. Too much agitation. There are the players: someone supports the government, like Mehdi Torabi (one of the few who has continued to sing the anthem), many cannot say what they think but have no intention of keeping silent. The latest is Ehsan Hajsafi, the defender uses the official eve protocol to say: «We are here, but we are the voice of those at home, people who cannot be happy because many things don’t work. We have to give our best respect to them.” They don’t know if they’ll stop hanging around after a goal, they don’t know what they’ll see in the stands, but the goal is to stay in this World Cup for as long as possible to make heavy statements, almost without using words.
Moving inside this revolt is difficult. Captain Jahanbakhsh finds the tension destabilizing: “It would take Kissinger’s diplomacy to make no mistake” and asks for a break from the questions, the request for intervention, the demand for opinions: every syllable has a consequence. He represents the wing that doesn’t want to go too far just that we are in the World of activism. He crosses the generation that is tired of not being politics and rights that can no longer depend on where you are born. England knows it and coach Southgate warns: “We kneel because it’s a strong signal and the world needs it, we do it because taking a stand for what matters is part of the character of this team”. Football has the power to circulate messages, it doesn’t always handle them but now it has much wider shoulders. —
© breaking latest news