USA vs. Iran (2022 World Cup)

About

Iran vs. USA refers to a group-stage match between the countries of Iran and the United States of America as part of the 2022 Qatar FIFA World Cup tournament. The match occurred on November 29th, with some controversies taking place leading up to the game, which ended with a 1-0 score that qualified the American team for the knock-out phase. The U.S. team drew flack for posting an Iranian flag without the Islamic state symbol on it, supposedly in solidarity with the women in the country protesting Islamic laws.

Background

Twitter Header Iran Flag Controversy

On November 27th, the U.S. Men's National Soccer team's official Twitter page temporarily displayed a flag of Iran without the Islamic Republic symbol. According to CNN, U.S. Soccer wanted to change the flag for 24 hours to show "support for the women in Iran fighting for basic human rights."^[1] A reupload of the now-removed graphic can be accessed via a tweet by Twitter^[2] user @GrantWahl, where it gathered over 1,000 likes in a day (seen below).

The US team's coach denied his or his player's knowledge of U.S. Soccer's actions, adding that their focus is on this match and [that he doesn't] … want to sound aloof or not caring by saying that."

The Match

On November 29th, 2022, the USA team won against Iran by a 1-0^[3] score and secured a position for the knock-out phase of the 2022 Qatar World Cup.

Developments

As the game between USA and Iran was approaching, some fans nicknamed the team's clash as the "War Cup" game amid the high tensions between the two countries. On Twitter,^[4] @Footballcasm_ posted a POV meme describing how the game would be played out. The post garnered 157,200 views and 2,100 likes in one day (seen below).

Search Interest

External References