For a few seconds, I forgot everything.
I forgot the politics.
I forgot the arguments.
I forgot the distance between Iranians inside Iran and Iranians outside of it.
I forgot how often it feels like we are divided by history, trauma, geography, class, religion, language, and whatever else the world has used to split us apart.
For a few seconds, Iran scored.
And every Iranian I know felt the same thing at the exact same time.
Joy.
Not complicated joy. Not conditional joy. Not “yes, but” joy.
Just pure, stupid, beautiful, chest-exploding joy.
Then came the review. Then came the offside call. Then came that very specific kind of silence only sports can create. The kind where your whole body already celebrated, but reality catches up and takes it back.And there we were again.
Heartbroken.
Iran was out.
Team Melli deserved better.
The people in Iran deserve better.
Honestly, all of us deserved better.
But there was something beautiful inside the ugliness of that moment.
For the first time in a long time, it felt like all Iranians were on the same side.
Not because we agreed on everything. We don’t.
Not because the pain went away. It didn’t.
Not because soccer fixes anything. It absolutely does not.
But because, for one small moment, we all wanted the same thing. We all felt the same hope. We all felt the same loss. We all remembered that underneath all the noise, all the arguments, all the trauma, all the impossible history, we still belong to each other.
That matters.
Because when everyone else is against us, and it often feels like they are, the only people we really have are each other.
That doesn’t mean blind loyalty. It doesn’t mean pretending everything is fine. It doesn’t mean ignoring what’s wrong, excusing what’s broken, or asking people to be quiet for the sake of unity.
Real unity is not silence.
Real unity is remembering that your people are still your people, even when you’re angry, even when you disagree, even when the whole thing feels impossible.
That moment when we thought Iran had scored was bigger than soccer.
It was a reminder of what we’re starving for.
Shared joy.
Shared grief.
Shared identity.
A reason to look around and say, “Oh. You felt that too?”
That is what makes a people whole.
Not winning. Winning would have been amazing. I would have taken winning. I am not that spiritually evolved.
But even in losing, there was a reminder.
We are still here.
We still care.
We still feel each other.
And maybe that is the silver lining.
Maybe the thing that helps Iranians thrive is not pretending we are not broken. Maybe it is finally admitting that we are, and then choosing each other anyway.
Team Melli deserved better.
The people in Iran deserve better.
Iran deserved better.
And somehow, in that awful, beautiful, devastating moment, I remembered something I needed to remember:
We still have each other.
And that is not nothing.
Be Better.