Travel Hell, US Ban, and a Cruel End: Iran Leaves World Cup with Immense Frustration

It's just enough for Iran's footballers to leave the World Cup frustrated, feeling that footballing fair play was repeatedly offside in their case.

The Iranian team management announced the players' departure from Tijuana, Mexico, on Monday at 6:00 PM local time (3:00 AM Tuesday in Slovakia). "This World Cup was a huge disaster. And I'm not just saying that from our team's perspective. FIFA accumulated a boulder of problems that it just pushed ahead and couldn't solve. I feel very sick about all of it," stated Mehdi Taremi, captain of the Iranian team.

From the outset of the 2026 World Cup, the Iranian national team was negatively impacted by the ongoing conflict between Iran, the United States, and Israel. Players faced visa issues, the relocation of their base camp from Arizona to Mexico, and especially travel restrictions imposed on the Southwest Asian football envoys by FIFA and US authorities.

This included a ban on the team entering the USA two days before matches. An exception was made only before their final game against Egypt, but afterward, the Iranians had to rush back to Mexico.

However, the greatest frustration emerged after the final group stage match. Iran scored a winning goal against Egypt in the third minute of added time, but the VAR system disallowed it due to an offside call against goal-scorer Shoja Khalilzadeh, by mere centimeters.

A recognized goal would have automatically secured their progression to the Round of 16 as the second-placed team in Group G. Instead, the opposite occurred; Iran had to rely on favorable outcomes in other matches to advance from third place in the group with 3 points and a 3:3 goal difference. Ultimately, this did not happen. The Iranian footballers were the first team to miss out, needing two more goals to reach the knockout stage.

"I believe our fans enjoyed our team at the World Cup, but there were too many controversial situations surrounding us. God must have had some issue with us, as three goals were disallowed over three matches, which was the most of any team at the World Cup.

On top of that, all those administrative hurdles. It's a shame, perhaps if our country wasn't at war with the tournament organizer, our team would have been in the World Cup knockout stage," said a disappointed Iranian coach Amir Ghalenoei.