With a hand on the heart: the moment of truth between Iran and England before the big game - voila! FIFA World Cup

Paz Hasdai, messenger and voila!

Sport for Qatar, reporting before the opening match of the 2022 World Cup (Photo: Paz Hasdaei Video editing: Tal Reznik)

The opening match of Group B in the World Cup will bring together England and Iran today (3:00 p.m.) for a battle of much more than football.

While from a professional point of view the Iranians arrive at the World Cup in neighboring Qatar with great momentum and from above the 20th place in the FIFA rankings, the main interest surrounding the national team concerns the question of the protest that its players may express in front of the whole world.

The hijab protest that has agitated Iran in recent months and brought hundreds of thousands to the streets In demanding the liberation of the people from the dark rule of the Revolutionary Guards, the country's former senior soccer players, including Ali Dai and Ali Karimi, who openly opposed the Ayatollahs, were also swept along by the revolution. Last month, several of Iran's national teams in the various fields also joined the protest - the basketball and handball teams who refused to sing the national anthem before their games, And the beach soccer team whose players celebrated scoring goals with a hair cutting movement - one of the symbols of the protest.

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A hint of what was to come could be seen in the Iranians' last preparation game for the World Cup, against Nicaragua, in which only two of the team's players sang the anthem of the Islamic Republic, and the rest of their members remained silent, but at that time the squad did not yet include most of the stars playing in Europe, and of course the effect of a similar act on The main stage in front of hundreds of millions of viewers around the world will be completely different, and may also lead to punitive measures against the protestors when they return to their homeland.

Ahsan Hajespi, one of the stars of the team that was suspended in 2017 after taking part in the game of his then Greek team Panionios against Maccabi Tel Aviv, said before the game: "We have to accept the fact that the situation in our country is not good and that the people are not happy. It is important for me to express my condolences To all the brave families in Iran. They need to know that we are with them. We are indeed here, but we need to be their voice, and we must give everything to achieve good results for them."

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Iranian players (Photo: GettyImages, Amir kheirkhah)

In England, too, they plan to use the biggest stage of all to convey a message.

The Three Lions team is expected to kneel before the opening whistle, as they have done in 33 consecutive games since the Corona break.

This is a protest against racism and injustice in the world, which, although it stopped in some of the Premier League games, takes place mainly in games with a higher resonance.

"We talked about it and we feel it's our duty," coach Gareth Southgate said.

"We believe this is an important message to the whole world, and especially to young people, and it's something we've been doing for a long time. The teams in England only do this in certain games, but for us, this is the biggest moment of all."

The big star Harry Kane even intended to wear a captain's armband in the colors of the pride flag next to the inscription "One Love", in a clear protest against the treatment of the LGBT community in Qatar. "We all want to wear this armband.

I think there are talks about this with FIFA, but this is our desire," he said last night.

But following heavy pressure from FIFA, he, and the other captains who intended to protest in this way (among them Manuel Neuer from Germany and Gareth Bale from Wales), had to withdraw for fear of receiving a yellow card for the act.

The protest was stopped.

Harry Kane (Photo: GettyImages, Shaun Botterill)

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