This World Cup campaign till now has far exceeded most of our expectations and brought us a sense of pride that I don’t remember having in any of our previous World Cups. But anyone that’s watched the media coverage of our games (or spent 10 minutes on Twitter) will find that we're constantly being bashed.
The reality doesn’t match the narrative we’re seeing in global media.
We need to do something about this.
Anyone that watched ITV's half-time analysis with Roy Kean and Ian Wright must have been shocked by the disrespect leveled at TM. Accusing us of playing dirty, cheating, negative, making the game unwatchable and on and on. I watched the analysis on Irish, American and other English-language channels and they were just as bad.
I remember back in 2000 to 2006 there was an Iranian football forum (which I don’t think exists anymore) and any time, for example, there was an article that was anything less than gushing with praise about TM we would mobilise en masse and make them offer corrections. After a while the image that was portrayed of TM in the media became much more aligned with reality.
We need that today more than ever.
We’re playing brilliant football yet everywhere you look they label us cheats. I’m not asking us to go as far as Saudi football twitter where they mobilise in large numbers and vote for Saudi in any football related poll, no matter how absurd. What I am saying is that we need to become much more involved as TM’s 12th man and when anyone finds disrespect or falsehood about us to please post it on PFDC so we can have a voice (in fact, it might be a good idea to start a thread keeping tabs on pundits, analysts and others who spread false or disparaging info about TM so we can all know who they are and respond accordingly).
I get it--some members will say “who cares what others think of us”, and there’s nothing wrong with feeling that way. But for everyone else, I think it would be a shame for us to allow others to tarnish the image of this outstanding team. We are the stand-out story of this World Cup because no other team overcome all the odds to get this far. We need to make sure the world knows that.
tl;dr: Our boys are playing amazingly and putting everything they have on the line to bring glory to Iran’s name. They deserve our support so that their efforts aren’t in vain. We’re winning on the pitch but losing the narrative. Let’s change that.
The reality doesn’t match the narrative we’re seeing in global media.
We need to do something about this.
Anyone that watched ITV's half-time analysis with Roy Kean and Ian Wright must have been shocked by the disrespect leveled at TM. Accusing us of playing dirty, cheating, negative, making the game unwatchable and on and on. I watched the analysis on Irish, American and other English-language channels and they were just as bad.
I remember back in 2000 to 2006 there was an Iranian football forum (which I don’t think exists anymore) and any time, for example, there was an article that was anything less than gushing with praise about TM we would mobilise en masse and make them offer corrections. After a while the image that was portrayed of TM in the media became much more aligned with reality.
We need that today more than ever.
We’re playing brilliant football yet everywhere you look they label us cheats. I’m not asking us to go as far as Saudi football twitter where they mobilise in large numbers and vote for Saudi in any football related poll, no matter how absurd. What I am saying is that we need to become much more involved as TM’s 12th man and when anyone finds disrespect or falsehood about us to please post it on PFDC so we can have a voice (in fact, it might be a good idea to start a thread keeping tabs on pundits, analysts and others who spread false or disparaging info about TM so we can all know who they are and respond accordingly).
I get it--some members will say “who cares what others think of us”, and there’s nothing wrong with feeling that way. But for everyone else, I think it would be a shame for us to allow others to tarnish the image of this outstanding team. We are the stand-out story of this World Cup because no other team overcome all the odds to get this far. We need to make sure the world knows that.
tl;dr: Our boys are playing amazingly and putting everything they have on the line to bring glory to Iran’s name. They deserve our support so that their efforts aren’t in vain. We’re winning on the pitch but losing the narrative. Let’s change that.
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