{"id":23319,"date":"2015-11-16T13:48:37","date_gmt":"2015-11-16T21:48:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=23319"},"modified":"2015-11-16T13:48:37","modified_gmt":"2015-11-16T21:48:37","slug":"guams-iran-match-bigger-than-the-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2015\/11\/16\/guams-iran-match-bigger-than-the-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Guam’s Iran match bigger than the game"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pacific Daily News – HAGATNA, Guam will host Iran in a World Cup Qualifying match on Tuesday. A victory for the Matao keeps hope alive of advancing to the next round of the tournament and a loss all but assures their elimination, but for those involved the match is only part of the story. In many ways, it\u2019s a small part.<\/strong><\/p>\n

During a press conference Monday, Iran head coach Carlos Queiroz was asked about, of all things, the artificial turf the match will be played on. His response, naturally, dug below the surface.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter many years in the game, I\u2019ve been all over the world,\u201d Queiroz said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had the opportunity to see many, many things in this world. I\u2019ve coached in Asia and Africa, in Europe and America. I think and I feel that tomorrow, (the players on both teams), it\u2019s their duty to have a good fight on the pitch, try to play the best football that is possible, but at the end of the day we\u2019ve come in some difficult times all over the world. Just look at the television. We don\u2019t want to bring more dust for a sports environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese boys tomorrow, they have a game. They must play with each other, try to win the game as much as possible, have a good fight on the pitch, but at the end, we must reach this goal, \u2026 to make football a better place \u2014 a field where all the boys and girls want to walk and run and play.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Iran team traveled to Guam, a U.S. territory, during a time when fear and hostility is impossible to ignore. Politically, the two nations don\u2019t interact. To travel from one to the other means first finding some middle ground, an intermediate country that will sponsor the visas.<\/p>\n

Guam went through that process in September when they competed in Iran. It was hectic and rushed. It didn\u2019t go according to plan and, less than a week before the match, it remained possible they wouldn\u2019t be allowed to enter Tehran to play. The whole team did.<\/p>\n

Iran had similar, if not multiplied, troubles coming here. Several of their key players were denied visas and aren\u2019t with the team. Competing in a soccer game is one of the few ways such travel is possible at all.<\/p>\n

The two teams want to compete hard, but a physical play may be seen as more than that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a fight,\u201d Matao captain Jason Cunliffe said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of it, I hope that they know they were in a battle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cunliffe said his team won\u2019t avoid confrontations on the pitch any more against Iran than they do against every other opponent \u2014 \u201cIf it\u2019s anything like that, it\u2019s because I don\u2019t want to get a red card\u201d \u2014 but the battle on the field will purely be one of soccer skill. The mutual respect is too great for anything else.<\/p>\n

\u2018Amazing experience\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tensions were high before the Matao played in Iran. The players weren\u2019t sure what to expect until they arrived and discovered it wasn\u2019t everything they\u2019d seen on TV.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an amazing experience,\u201d Cunliffe said. \u201cSome things the media has a different idea of what life is like on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was cultural adjustment. They were careful where to look when they walked around town, and the male-only crowd in the stadium was disarming. Added to the pressure of representing Guam and the U.S. in Iran, then competing against the top-ranked team in Asia, led to a slow, cautious start.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Tehran, I think we showed them a little bit too much respect and that was reflected in the result,\u201d Cunliffe said of the 6-0 loss.<\/p>\n

The Matao were cautious, careful about how they played, aware not only of their talented opponent\u2019s ability to score quickly, but of their political responsibility as representatives of the U.S.<\/p>\n

That is in play now, with the roles reversed. Iran arrived in Guam a few days before the match to train, acclimate themselves to the time and weather and see a new, unfamiliar place that\u2019s only been shown to them on TV.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that they\u2019ve been treated with the utmost respect and kindness, like anyone who comes to Guam,\u201d Cunliffe said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Complete privilege\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Iran captain Andranik Teymourian knows he is representing his team and his country on U.S. soil, and he\u2019s proud to do it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a complete privilege to represent Iran,\u201d he said. \u201cOne-hundred percent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The difficulties of the trip \u2014 from obtaining visas to jet lag to playing on artificial turf \u2014 have weighed heavily on him, but he said the team is confident, comfortable and focused.<\/p>\n

During the press conference and after, he declined to comment on any of the challenges, saying they\u2019ve already been talked about too much.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe came here to play football and we\u2019re not going to think about anything else but football,\u201d he said through a translator.<\/p>\n

During the press conference, Queiroz and Matao head coach Gary White stressed the importance of the game as an opportunity to grow soccer and share the positive impact the sport can have.<\/p>\n

The young players and fans in the crowd will watch and know they can grow up to compete against the best team in Asia, which Iran is.<\/p>\n

They will also see two teams that worked through challenges beyond their control just to get on the field a play a game, growing a sport and respect between nations where the opportunity to do that is extremely limited.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf two countries like this can get together and play a sport in a good way, it shows what is possible,\u201d White said.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 This is bigger than politics. It\u2019s about the kids and the sport and the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pacific Daily News – HAGATNA, Guam will host Iran in a World Cup Qualifying match…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":23320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,84,91,86,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-c47-featured-news","category-c20-other-news","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-world-cup"],"views":2482,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}