June 15, 2026
The soccer World Cup is currently underway in North America and as luck would have it New Zealand was playing Iran in Los Angeles at SoFi stadium, home of the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers. Opened in 2020, it is a state of the art stadium with a curving polymer roof and a unique double sided video board that weighs over 2 million pounds (1,000 metric tons). The stadium holds over 70,000 people and with its towering stands, it is not unlike the World Cup quidditch stadium in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Los Angeles has one of the largest Iranian communities outside Iran itself, and we think that most of them must have been at the ground, because it definitely felt like a home game for Iran. When they scored the sound was deafening. But that does not mean that those at the game were necessarily fans of the current regime. In fact, it appeared to be just the opposite, with many fans booing the national anthem which had been adopted by the Islamic state in 1990. Many also waved the the Lion and Sun flag that was Iran’s national flag before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The flag has become a symbol of Iranian identity, protest and support for democratic change. FIFA’s ban of the flag as a political symbol appeared to be widely ignored, based on the number of flags being waved both outside and inside the stadium. The game ended in a 2-2 draw which seemed to be a fair result.
Mal and Lauren 