The Iranian national anthem received a mixture of boos and whistles at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles before the country’s World Cup opener with New Zealand.
This was the Iranian soccer team’s first game since the country struck a preliminary deal with President Donald Trump’s White House to reopen the strait of Hormuz to commercial traffic. The two countries will now work a larger peace plan amid a tenuous ceasefire.
The crowd included Americans, New Zealanders, and members of Los Angeles’ sizable Iranian population. Among southern Californians, LA is often referred to as ‘Tehrangeles’ for its estimated 230,000 Iranian-American citizens, many of whom fled the current regime before and after the 1979 revolution.
And those who still oppose the government in Tehran made themselves known on Monday by waving the pre-revolutionary flag, which includes the depiction of a sword-wielding lion and a sun.
As the Iranian team appeared on SoFi Stadium’s many scoreboards, there was some booing and whistling circulating the stadium, and that only grew worse when the public address announcer asked attendees to stand for the national anthem.
But the response from the crowd wasn’t entirely negative.
There was some cheering among pockets of pro-regime fans at SoFi Stadium, where some supporters were seen waving the country’s current flag. And as the anthem crescendoed, a surge of cheers could be hard throughout much of the building.
(L-R) Shoja Khalilzadeh, Saeid Ezatolahi, Alireza Beiranvand and Mehdi Taremi of IR Iran line up for the national anthem before the FIFA World Cup 2026 Group G match against New Zealand
Alireza Jahanbakhsh #7 and players of IR Iran line up for the national anthem in Los Angeles
Iranian fans wave the pre-revolutionary flag at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on Monday
A protester holds a sign with a portrait of the son of the last shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, as people demonstrate against the Iranian regime outside SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles
Pro-regime fans are spotted at SoFi Stadium waving Iran’s current post-revolutionary flag
Prior to kickoff, protestors demonstrated against the current Iranian regime’s persecution of athletes and political prisoners.
And some remained hopeful that a strong run at the World Cup could help mend the rift between Iran and its expats.
‘You would hope that soccer and sports brings unity,’ Iran fan Dany Taheri told NBCLA. ‘It brings everyone together, people on both sides of the aisle inside Iran and outside Iran.’
That proved to be the case when Ramin Rezaeian scored the first of two equalizers in the 32nd minute and Mohammad Mohebbi followed with the other in the 64th minute. Iranian fans on both side of the political divide reacted to each goal with sheer exuberance and many refused to return to their seat for long stretches of play.
‘Tehrangeles celebrates!!!!!’ one attendee wrote on X.
