For the first two World Cup matches, the Iranian team had to travel from Mexico to the United States the day before each game and leave again on the evening of the match. These restrictions severely hampered training, Ghalenoei said. His team had to cut one training session in half and then wait for a long time at the airport.
“For the last game, they allowed us to decide on travel plans ourselves. For the first two games, others made those decisions and plans for us,” Ghalenoei said a day before the match against Belgium at the Los Angeles stadium. Originally, the team was even scheduled to arrive only on the day of the match. The background is the Iran war, in which a framework agreement was recently reached.
Ghalenoei criticized the lack of support from other national team coaches. “I asked 47 other coaches a question, and none of them answered me,” he said. The Iranian federation had announced a complaint to world football body FIFA, arguing that the restrictions were incompatible with the principles of equal conditions. Ghalenoei qualified this: there had been no formal complaint, they had merely pointed out the grievances.
Source: www.tagesspiegel.de
