‘We only think about the sport. There is no hatred on our part towards the Iraqis. When we visited Iraq, we received a very warm reception from the people. However, we can never forget the unique sacrifice that our martyrs made in the war we had and we honour their memories.
‘We’ll win. But it’s going to be a tough game. We don’t expect any favours, least of all from the Iraqis. They’re going to give everything they have. They have a lot of pride.’
And so, finally, the day of reckoning arrives. As I set out to the Azadi, my mind drifts back to the Saudi Arabia match. Then the crowds had begun to swarm around Iran’s national stadium by 6 a.m. The demand for tickets was tremendous. ‘I must see this game, I have travelled for sixteen hours to be here,’ Masood Sistani from Zahedan had told me.
By 7 a.m. riot police were in evidence, and by 8 a.m. they had delivered the first of a series of routine beatings. The reason for these never became altogether clear, but as I nursed my own police-sponsored bruises, a young fan told me that these security forces were drafted in from the provinces and had a chip on their shoulders about Tehran’s citizens.
For the visit of Iraq though, the pre-match beatings are few and far between. Instead there is a feeling of dark foreboding, a tension that suggests everything is being bottled up for later. At every significant square and junction, the security forces stand at the fringes, a menacing presence and an ill-omen for the rest of the day.
Standing at pitch side and looking up at the faces of the colourful masses, it is impossible not to be taken over by the sheer drama of the occasion. Behind the grease-painted faces of the young there is a desire, a real vehemence that today they will taste victory.
The war is never allowed to be too far from people’s thoughts. Even now, its allegorical symbols are a fixture in Iranian society. So on the day that Iraq visits Iran, when they are once again the enemy, it is obligatory to wheel out the war wounded. As the Iraqis warm up, alone in front of 110,000 Iranians, the home team’s players embrace the veterans and present them with flowers. The reaction of the crowd is mute, the cynicism of the whole ceremony obvious to everyone. For most fans, the only war that really matters is the one that will last for the next ninety minutes.
It is a real cup-tie from the first kick to the last. Iran have all the possession, they make all the running, and they take the risks. The Iraqis play like demons. They are here to be the spoilers. They have no chance of going to the World Cup themselves, but if they can stop Iran, if they can take away Iran’s unbeaten record in qualification, then it will make up for all of that. They are also playing for their futures. When the Iraqis lost to Iran in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein’s son Uday, who runs the Iraqi Football Federation, sacked eight of the team. There is a real fear in the faces of the Iraqis. They dare not lose.
For twenty-seven minutes, they defend with their lives. Then comes the breakthrough. Mahdavikia serenely passes the ball from the right edge of the eighteen-yard box past the despairing Iraqi keeper Saad Jameel. The crowd, merely frenzied up until now, lose all control. They leap as one, and in the scrum that follows, fights break out over lost seats. The Iraqis try to chase the game, and the tension goes up another notch, but Iran stay in charge.
Half-time and Blazevic is pleased. ‘More goals lads,’ he tells Mr Challangar to tell his boys. But the second half comes too soon for the Iranians. They are still playing the first half in their heads. They create a great chance, but miss and the Iraqis counter-attack quickly. Qathan Drain converts a well-worked move to bring the scores level.
The fans turn up the volume, and Iran respond. They show all the spirit, all the unity that Blazevic had told me about. The game is at their mercy. Chances come and chances go. The anxiety level reaches fever pitch…and then the dam bursts. Iran’s latest pin-up Ali Karimi scores. With seventy minutes gone, it’s 2–1. For the remaining twenty minutes the Iraqis pour forward, desperately chasing the game and, when it comes, the final whistle is like the mercury bursting on a thermometer. The relief is tangible. The crowd cheer, cry, hug each other. Iraq, the old foe, has been defeated. But much more importantly, the World Cup finals are a step nearer.
But after the joy comes the release of pent-up anger. The Iranian footballers have become symbols of national pride, that rare thing in Iran, a totem around which to gather, a lightning rod for dissent against the unhappiness that people feel in their otherwise humdrum lives. Here were ninety minutes of exultation for the masses, but what is there for them now?
In the wake of the victory, the crowds take to the streets. Their delight turns into a violent reaction to the harsh circumstances they face. Tyres are set ablaze, telephone booths vandalised, windows smashed, and anti-regime chants are heard across Tehran and Iran’s other cities. Some claim this is a spontaneous reaction and to some extent they are right. But in a country where boys and girls fear holding hands in case the special morality police take them in or, worse, send them to a moral correction unit, football may not be enough to contain their passions.
Tomorrow La Scala AC Milan v Inter, November 2002
The world’s capital of fashion and opera, Milan was never going to stage just any old footballing derby. This is the story of the nine-decade duet between two very different teams.
On a damp Saturday night 80,000 expectant fans flock to the leafy, well-heeled western outskirts of Milan, Italy’s football and fashion capital. From the outside, the three-tiered San Siro stadium resembles a giant Hallowe’en pumpkin, shafts of white light beaming out through the slits of the six huge spiralling walkways around its perimeter.
Once inside, each end suddenly explodes ten minutes before kick-off into huge, perfectly choreographed displays of banners, slogans, and colour-coded placards. The whole vibrant spectacle is down to the dedicated work of hundreds of members of the much-maligned ultras, the organised supporters groups only some of whose members engage in violence. But tonight they compete in an artistic battle orchestrated with a synchronisation worthy of La Scala, the city’s other famous theatre a few kilometres away to the east in Milan’s cobble-stoned city centre.
The second tier of the curva sud – south bank – of the ‘home’ side disappears under a red-and-black sea of placards. In a seamless scene-change, an enormous banner unrolls above the crowd, forty metres by thirty, depicting a cartoon scene of Milan stars with the slogan, La Storia Infinita – the never-ending story. The 7,300 ‘visiting’ Inter contingent respond by making the curva nord shimmer with hundreds of shiny blue-and-black placards, dotted with the famous bright yellow stars, sported only by teams who have won at least ten titles.
Then they too unfurl above their heads a huge banner featuring Giuseppe ‘Peppino’ Prisco, one of the club’s most popular directors, who died last season. Much loved for his mischievous media comments, the elderly lawyer is shown with his trademark wicked grin and making a vulgar hand gesture. His message ‘to the worms in Hell’ is not lost on Milan’s diavoli rossi, the red devils. From the Milan end, fireworks shoot into the night sky from the front of the second tier. The whole show is carried off with style and humour, provoking gasps and applause from around the packed stadium, and will lead the evening TV sports bulletins.
Tonight’s derby – in Italy the English term is used – has an importance beyond its usual city confines. For the first time in a decade Milan’s two teams are simultaneously tilting for the Serie A title. Just one week before they had found themselves sharing the very top spot in the table, an event not seen for an astonishing thirty years. The lineups feature a string of top Italians – Christian Vieri of Inter and his best friend Filippo ‘Pippo’ Inzaghi of Milan, Gigi di Biaggio, Francesco Toldo, Paolo Maldini and his defensive sidekick of fifteen years, Alessandro ‘Billy’ Costacurta – but on the night this 253rd Milanese derby is won for Milan by a 12th-minute display of Brazilian football geometry.
The gangly Rivaldo threads a flat diagonal pass from the centre circle towards wide player Serginho