Iran will be allowed to travel to the United States earlier than initially planned for their last World Cup group stage match against Egypt on June 26 in Seattle, coach Amir Ghalenoei said.
“For the last game, they allowed us to decide on our own travel plans. For the first two games, others made those decisions and plans for us,” he said during a news conference on Saturday.
Iran play their second group stage match against Belgium on Sunday in Los Angeles after their started the tournament with a 2-2 draw with New Zealand.
For these both matches, Iran had to travel from their headquarters in Mexico to the US a day before the game. Ghalenoei said he didn’t understand why it wasn’t possible to travel earlier in these two cases.
“We would have needed 24 hours (in Los Angeles before the match), but they gave us less than 16 hours, so we had to cut our training session short. These restrictions made it very difficult for us,” he said.
Ghalenoei added he would have liked more support from other national team coaches.
“I asked 47 other coaches a question, and none of them answered me. I’m sure they’re all busy preparing their own teams, and I don’t expect a response. But if I had seen another team being treated the way we are, I would have said something,” he said, not clarifying what was the question asked to the other coaches.
Iran’s participation in the World Cup has been surrounded by off-pitch issues due to the political situation between the nation and co-hosts United States.
Originally, the team would only be allowed to arrive on the location of a game on matchday. This was amended before Iran’s match against New Zealand, but the team still had to return to Mexico right after the match.
There was huge uncertainty over whether Iran would even compete at the World Cup given the conflict with the US. They moved their World Cup camp from Arizona to Mexico before agreeing to come. The team also had issues to get visas approved.
