Italy’s repechage to the World Cup, Taremi steps in with a leg up
The 2026 World Cup is getting closer and closer: Iran after Thursday’s friendly with Mali in Turkey will leave for Mexico, where a base camp is set up in Tijuana for training throughout the rainbow event in North America. There remain the ominous shadows of war and the unknown of visas for the United States to keep the Tehran selection’s participation always in the balance, but one of the team’s stars, former Inter Mehdi Taremi, has no doubts and sets the goals for ‘Team Melli’.
“The countdown to the start of the world’s biggest soccer event has begun. When a country hosts the World Cup, it must abide by certain principles and rules,” Taremi thundered to Al-Jazeera. Politics has always been separate from sports, and this principle must be maintained. The World Cup can be a message of peace and friendship for all the peoples of the world, because this sports tournament has billions of spectators around the world.”
Taremi is very confident: “Our duty as national team players is to make people happy. There have been bitter events in our country, known to the whole world, which have saddened the Iranian people. In such circumstances, we try to make people happy with good results and proper performance.”
The former Inter Milan player does not believe that the players will be affected by what is happening, “I have always had the habit of focusing all my attention on the matches before participating in major tournaments like the World Cup and not thinking about anything else. I hope we can deliver the best possible performance and achieve good results for Iranian soccer and for the people of our country.”
In the background of this tangled diplomatic and sporting affair hovers the issue of the repechage of Italy, the first national team excluded in the FIFA rankings among those not qualified and a potential beneficiary of an eventual Iranian forfeit under Article 6.7 of the FIFA regulations. A track that, with the obtaining of the Mexican visas and the iron will of ‘Team Melli’ to participate, now seems to have been definitively dashed.
