Usa V Iran: The Historic 2000 Friendly Match Planned To Bring Countries Together

Lovely feature about this match on the beeb:

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/55216193

I haven't actually seen this match but the I did 'watch' the '98 world cup meeting between Iran and the Great Satan and that really sticks in my mind as one of the best matches I have ever attended (although I remember very little of the football).

I was in Vilnius and it was a 10PM (local time) KO. I had made arrangements to meet some Americans (ex- Peace Corps, they were very atypical 'Americans Abroad' as they had stayed in Lithuania when the Peace Corps had left and all had gone native marrying locals). The barman of my local was an Afghantsi (Soviet Army veteran) and was fluent in Farsi so I got him to write "The Great Satan" in Persian which I had printed on a couple of t-shirts, one for me and one for my friend Alan.

Most of the matches were shown being shown on a big screen in the courtyard of the 'big' PUB favoured by ex-pats. I met the 'Rebel Colonials' in the sparsely attended bar before kick-off, presented Alan with his (admittedly a bit ****) t-shirt and prepared to watch the match.

In walked a group of about a dozen huge, American blokes. One clocked our t-shirts and made a beeline for Alan and me (accompanied by three of the biggest, baddest looking muvvah ***kahs). "The Great Satan" he drawled and Alan, in a great show of friendship, told him that they were made by "...that limey ******* over there..." and that I had forced him to wear it for a bet. He asked us if we could recommend a good draught beer for him and his fellow "...consultants..." and "...contractors..." and explained how the result of this match was unimportant for the US as whatever the score would be it had to be a win-win situation for future US-Iranian relations.

The beer started flowing, the teams came onto pitch and exchanged gifts one of which was a small pennant/flag of the Stars and Stripes which when I pointed out that was a bit poor as it "...wasn't fit for burning...." the room dissolved (thankfully) into laughter and the evening descended into a booze fuelled evening of hilarity (which gets a little difficult to remember) but I do remember the room erupting into cheers and toasts when shortly, before the end of the first half, the hooky Moroccan channel showing the match broadcast, in a surtitle, the evening call to prayer...

 

This is similar to USA v Cuba in baseball or especially boxing.

If the Cuban is fighting a Russian or a Brit or an Italian or whatever, the people are interested, sure. But if the Cuban is fighting a Septic, there is no room around the TV and people are even looking in through the windows to watch. Cubans like nothing more than to put one over on the bloodthirsty giant from the north. Cifriana broke her fan clean in half smacking it on her knee the last time there was a Cuba v USA boxing match at the Olympics.

Here are some samples:

The great and wonderful Teofilo Stevenson takes on "Big John" Tate of the USA in the 1976 heavyweight semifinal. The video is only 1 minute 39, but if you're impatient skip to 1:20. Soundtrack in Kremlin house:- "Whooaaa, whooaaaa, se va se va se va........YAAAAAAY!!!"



Or how about the amazing Felix Savón v Robert Geer. 6 foot 6 giant Geer boasted before the fight that he was "up for this" and that he had the strength and he had the conditioning and he was "going after" Savon. You can see how he got on by skipping to 3:40