JAKARTA - The World Cup meeting between Iran and the United States is always surrounded by a non-ball narrative background.
We certainly still remember how Iran defeated the US at the 1998 World Cup in France with a score of 2-1.
Prior to kick-off, the match was marked by a political peace action in which Team Melli's players gave white wreaths to US players.
Now, ahead of their fight in Group B of the Qatar World Cup, controversy is also back. Understandably, since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran and the US have been at odds.
This year, amid ongoing protests in Iran over the treatment of women and protesters in the country, the US is taking bold steps that may anger the Iranian government.
Launching Marca, Monday, the social media of the United States Men's National Team (USMNT) posted their match schedule against Iran for the third match in Group B.
After a 0-0 draw with England on Friday night, USMNT is now sitting one point behind Iran, where their winner of Tuesday's fight is almost certain to qualify for the round of 16.
In a post showing the standings, the US team used a flag for Iran that only shows the color of the country and is not a symbol of the Islamic Republic commonly found in its center.
It is known that the Iranian flag is a source of controversy in Qatar where fans who support the government fly it wildly, while those who oppose prefer to use other designs.
The most controversial design is the 'Singa and Sun' flag which is actually the symbol of former Iranian leader Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
However, the Iranian flag post without the symbol of Islam has been deleted. The USMNT then uploaded a schedule with the Iranian flag in general. However, the comments column for the upload was attacked by ethnic anti-government netizens. Look below:
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language. (system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
