Iran’s football team flew from Mexico to Los Angeles as they prepare for their World Cup opener on Monday [Getty]
Iran’s soccer team arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday after a short flight from Tijuana, Mexico where they left their World Cup base camp earlier to a rousing send off ahead of their opening match against New Zealand.
The A320 aircraft touched down on runway 25L at 4:11 p.m. ET (2011 GMT) under sunny skies at the airport, which is about 15 minutes from the Los Angeles Stadium that will host Iran’s World Cup opener on Monday.
The team were expected to head to their hotel where a police security presence was already in place.
But the Iran team has had to leave some of its support team in Tijuana after the US refused to grant visas to 15 administrative and management staff.
Iran’s participation in the World Cup has been shrouded in doubt for months after the United States and Israel launched an aerial assault on the Islamic Republic that became a wider Middle East war.
Never before has a World Cup host — the US is sharing responsibilities with Mexico and Canada — been at war with a nation that has qualified.
Conflicting signals from US President Donald Trump clouded their participation. In one social media post he said the team was “welcome” but suggested they stay away for “their own life and safety.”
Out of the Iran team’s three group-stage matches taking place on American soil, two of those games are set to take place in Los Angeles — the US city that has the largest ethnic Iranian population anywhere outside of Iran, sometimes nicknamed “Tehrangeles.”
But history is complicated, and a significant chunk of that population is fiercely opposed to the regime of the Islamic republic, which overthrew the Shah in 1979.
That opposition was renewed in January when Tehran violently suppressed a popular uprising, leaving perhaps thousands of people dead.
Pro-Shah Iranian-Americans in the city flooded the streets, many carrying the Lion and Sun flag, in support of those demonstrating in Iran.
