As the ball slipped into the net, Sahand Vafadary leaped from his seat and twirled his Iran flag above his head in celebration. New Zealand had just retaken the lead in its World Cup opener against Mr. Vafadary’s native country and he was ecstatic.
Mr. Vafadary, a physician from Phoenix, Ariz., said he spent $300 on a ticket to cheer on Iran’s opponent inside So-Fi stadium in Inglewood, Calif., in protest.
“The reason we want New Zealand to win is because the Iranian team playing right now, whether intentionally or not, they are being used as propaganda by the regime,” said Mr. Vafadary, who was born in Tehran.
His was not the only act of protest on a night that will go down as one of the strangest atmospheres at a World Cup game as Iran took the field to start its competition after months of uncertainty. Iran was wildly cheered by the majority of spectators and jeered by others.
Since the United States and Israel launched their joint attack on the country at the end of February, Iranian players have had to navigate a thicket of adjustments, accommodations and frustrations just to compete.
The match was anticipated to be as much a political event as a group-stage game. Los Angeles is home to one of the largest Iranian diasporas in the world, and has become a global epicenter of opposition to the government in Tehran. Iran is the first participant in the World Cup’s near century-long history to have been in armed conflict with a tournament host country.
The match, which ended in a 2-2 draw, played out as the United States and Iran had signed a framework agreement ending their monthslong war, though neither side had published the deal’s full text as of Monday.
‘Too much pressure’
None of that eased the tension felt by the Mehdi Taremi, the captain, and his teammates. Mr. Taremi arrived late to a news conference after arriving in Los Angeles from the team’s base in Mexico, their bus confronted by anti-regime protesters on the way to the team hotel. U.S. authorities granted the team visas for its World Cup games just 10 days ago, and only under the condition that it leave the country immediately after each of its three scheduled games in the United States.
For many in Los Angeles, the team has become a canvas onto which protesters have projected their fury at the country’s rulers.
Hundreds of anti-regime protesters — mainly supporters of the former Shah — gathered close to the stadium hours before the game to oppose the regime, and, in some cases, the team, too. To thumping music and with megaphones they chanted slogans like, “Mullah’s team is not my team” and “down with the regime.”
“No one in their right mind would support” the return of the royal family, said Hossein Shah, from New York, decrying the attention given to the Los Angeles protesters. “We are here to support the team.”
On Sunday, Arash Razi, a protest organizer, handed out thousands of T-shirts bearing Iran’s pre-revolutionary flag, an emblem that FIFA, the World Cup’s organizer, has banned from the stadium under its rules against political symbols. Mr. Razi was undeterred, citing his First Amendment rights. Inside and outside the stadium, fans could be seen wearing those symbols, defying FIFA’s ban. On the concourse at halftime, one man with a prohibited flag around his waist hurled abuse at a woman draped in Iran’s current standard.
The team walked out to an official FIFA song that carried the lyrics “it’s more than just a game” and stood around the center circle as thousands inside the stadium, supporting the team, jeered Iran’s national anthem.
The ferocity of the opposition in Los Angeles, where the team is playing two of its three games, led some die-hard fans to reconsider going to the stadium. On the eve of the game, scuffles also broke out between rival groups of Iranians, and police had to intervene.
“I might not go because of the Los Angeles diaspora,” said Sahar Salajegheh, a dental surgeon. “I don’t want to get in trouble with them. That’s the only reason I wouldn’t go, even though my friends have a ticket for me.”
In the middle of it all is the team itself, most of whose players had not played professional soccer since the start of the war. The team has been on the road since May, first at a training camp in southern Turkey and now in Tijuana, Mexico, the border city where it relocated its tournament base at the last minute from Tucson, Ariz.
“There is too much pressure on them from everywhere,” Ms. Salajegheh said. The team, she added, is caught in the middle, a casualty not only of a conflict between nations but of the divisions among Iranians abroad who are projecting their own views, politics and demands onto a group of 26 athletes. “They are not even sure that their own people are cheering for them.”
Sam Ghaffari, 50, a doctor from Cleveland, Ohio, who moved to the United States as an infant with his family, said one of his brothers had “an existential crisis” over how to support the team but not the government. In the end, the family decided to obscure the Islamic Republic’s flag displayed on the team’s shirt as a small act of defiance.
The players, Mr. Ghaffari said from his seat in the stadium, were “damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.”
‘We have felt the tension’
In Mexico, the team has been feted by locals — including a mariachi band — some Iranian visitors and even high-profile Mexican politicians who have traveled to meet with the squad. But the tension surrounding the team has meant heavy security, including motorcades of armed operatives whenever it leaves its base. On Sunday, Iran’s players got a rousing send-off for the short trip to Los Angeles. Its arrival was far less welcoming, with groups of protesters waiting at the airport and outside the team hotel.
At a news conference on Monday that barely touched on soccer, Mr. Taremi, the team’s captain, and Amir Ghalenoei, the coach, tried to assert that the team was apolitical and represented all Iranians wherever they live. But each also voiced frustrations with the conditions the team has faced. Mr. Taremi spoke candidly about how the joy of reaching the World Cup has been “undermined” by the circumstances surrounding the team, and President Trump had even suggested the team’s “life and safety” would be at risk if they participated.
With the delay in obtaining American entry visas, the team departed later than planned for the World Cup. The visas were eventually granted to the players — but not to more than a dozen team officials including the federation’s president, a former commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, a group the United States designates a terrorist organization.
“Of course, we have felt the tension from the moment we arrived at this World Cup,” Mr. Taremi said. “This kind of tension undermines that joy and undermines the message of FIFA, which is about football bringing about peace,” he said, adding that American authorities had also disrupted the preparations of other teams and officials.
Inside the stadium, Iran was missing a significant number of supporters. FIFA recently withdrew about 1,000 tickets issued to the Iran federation after the U.S. Treasury Department raised concerns that the sales would violate longstanding sanctions on doing business with Iran. Still, Iran supporters heavily outnumbered those of their opponents.
On Saturday, the team presented a united front, gathering its entire delegation — including officials barred from entering the United States, such as Mehdi Taj, the federation’s president — in a large circle at its practice ground in Mexico. Afterward, Mr. Taj accused the United States of “failing to observe any international protocols, or even the basic protocols of the World Cup.”
He and a dozen others, including the team’s two press officers, watched from a hotel lobby in Tijuana as the team jogged onto to the field for its World Cup debut.
