U.S.-Iran World Cup prediction: Expect a heated atmosphere on and off the field

Nov. 28—In my prediction for the U.S.-Wales game, I wrote that because I hadn't seen this U.S. team beat enough opponents from outside Concacaf, I wasn't convinced it could do so at the World Cup.

Though the Americans still haven't earned a win in Qatar, I've seen enough now to believe they can beat Iran on Tuesday (2 p.m., Fox29, Telemundo, Peacock).

I've watched U.S. men's teams at World Cups for over two decades, and I've never seen one control a World Cup game the way this squad did against England. Not under Jürgen Klinsmann, not under Bob Bradley, and not under Bruce Arena — including the famed 3-2 upset of Portugal in 2002 that's still the only American win over a European team at a men's World Cup.

If Gregg Berhalter's team plays with the same level of intensity and quality it did on Friday, the U.S. should win this game and advance to the round of 16. The U.S. players know that only a win will do, nothing else, and that should help sharpen their focus.

How to bet on U.S. vs. Iran

That focus will be needed even more than usual with all the off-the-field controversies surrounding this game. If you want athletes to stick to sports, this is not the game for you. But even some of that crowd knows that when the U.S. plays Iran in any sports context, just like Russia and China and some other countries in the world, sticking to sports is impossible.

Beyond the perennial political rivalry between the U.S. and Iran, there's the current controversy over the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman arrested by Iran's "morality police" for wearing her hijab too loosely. She died while in police custody, leading to huge protests in Iran — and thousands of arrests and hundreds more deaths, according to human rights watchdogs. The U.S. has sanctioned Iran for the crackdowns multiple times.

At both of Iran's World Cup games so far, the stands have seen huge swaths of Iranian fans protesting their government. Many Iranian players have sided with the protesters, including by refusing to sing the national anthem in their group stage opener. Iran's federation forced them to do it in the second game, and the crowd responded by booing.

There have been widespread accusations that Iranian government officials are monitoring citizens in the stands. Other Iran fans have been harassed too. One of the latter happens to be a friend of this reporter: Camellia Senemar, a former public relations staffer at Fox Sports who worked on the network's soccer coverage. After security staff tried to ban her group from entering the Iran-Wales game, she was interviewed on CNN.

World Cup 2022: TV schedule, live streaming, kickoff times on Fox and Telemundo ,

This drew praise from protesters, but a backlash from Iran's soccer federation and government — including a demand by a state media outlet that FIFA kick the U.S. out of the World Cup and ban the team for 10 games.

(The outlet's Twitter profile includes a depiction of a burning U.S. flag.)

U.S. Soccer briefly scrubs emblem from Iran flag in social media post from World Cup ,

A few hours after the posts went up, they were taken down. U.S. Soccer's head of public relations didn't explain why to reporters in Qatar, saying only: "I'm not gonna get into specifics. We made the decision."

When the U.S. team took the field for its practice Sunday night, Yahoo! Sports noted there was an unusual edge in the air among the staff.

At a news conference Monday, Berhalter and U.S. captain Tyler Adams were peppered with questions from Iranian media that had nothing to do with soccer. Iran manager Carlos Quieroz, to his credit, tried to calm the waters when he met the press right before them.,

The 1998 U.S.-Iran men's World Cup game was described at the time as the most politically charged game in World Cup history. Iran won it, 2-1, in what was the second group stage game of that tournament.

This game will surely top that one for controversy. Now to see if it will be a U.S. win.

Prediction: United States 1, Iran 0.

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