The former U.S. embassy in downtown Tehran now appears to be an abandoned estate. The lamps that once illuminated the main entrance are shattered; the American eagle emblem on the front gate is defaced and looks like an ancient artifact. A visitor peering through the gate sees no movement inside the walls, but there is one telltale sign of life—the open sewer that runs from the compound to the street is full of burbling brown water. The compound has, in a facile irony, been converted by the Islamic Republic of Iran into a training academy for its elite Revolutionary Guards.

Islamists deem it decadent, but Iranians are zealous about soccer.    (Simon Bruty)

For an American, standing at the gate of this compound is like standing before a headstone that marks a U.S. tragedy that occurred almost 19 years ago—66 American hostages in blindfolds, the frenzied chants of the Iranian mob as the U.S. flag was set ablaze. The words of the Ayatullah Khomeini, dead since 1989, are still painted in thick black letters on the brick wall that surrounds the compound: WE WILL MAKE AMERICA SUFFER A SEVERE DEFEAT.

WHEN KHOMEINI'S GOVERNMENT finally released the hostages on Jan. 20, 1981, after 444 days in captivity, most Americans washed their hands of Iran. The two countries aren't on speaking terms officially—Iran still calls the U.S. the Great Satan; America accuses Iran of sponsoring terrorism—but on June 21 in Lyon, France, in a first-round World Cup match arranged by lottery, they will meet on the playing field. The enmity promises to make this much more than just another low-scoring soccer game: It will be the first chance for most Americans to view soccer through the prism of fervent nationalism that makes the World Cup tournament so provocative for the rest of the world.

While some Iranians see this match as an opportunity to further punish the Great Satan, most have a more pragmatic goal—they merely want their team to play well enough to earn the respect of the American people and the international community from which they have been cut off since Khomeini's Islamic fundamentalists came to power. Soccer is the one activity that transcends all the religious and political differences in Iran. "The U.S. embassy was about a block and a half from a major stadium where they used to play soccer matches," recalls Bruce Laingen, who was U.S. charge d'affaires when he and the other Americans were taken hostage and who is now president of the American Academy of Diplomacy in Washington, D.C. "We could hear their cheers coming over the walls, whether they were celebrating a win or bemoaning a loss." Even now, children pour out of classroom windows at recess to claim a rectangle of asphalt for their daily game; men and boys commandeer the streets for what we would call pickup games, forcing traffic to either wait or find a detour.

As is true in virtually every country except Canada and the United States, soccer has become an expression of national character and identity in Iran. The efficiency and discipline of the German armies is now exhibited by that country's national soccer teams. The Italians play with elegant, classical style. The English, to quote Churchill, "will never surrender." The Brazilians, the defending World Cup champions, play to a musical rhythm that no coach can teach—and this is much like the approach of the Iranians. They play their soccer in the streets, on basketball courts, even on highway medians; need and passion have bred ingenuity.

"I learned to play with the metal cap from a bottle of Coca-Cola," says Dr. Vahid Karbasi, 34, a pediatric intern at the Ali Asghar Hospital in Tehran. "It was important that the bottle be opened carefully so that the cap remained flat. After school four of us would play, two against two, with the bottle cap. I learned to make accurate passes of 10 to 20 yards."

The tale of the Khabiri brothers, heroes of the national team in the 1970s, has been woven into a modern Iranian legend. Mohammad was the introverted intellectual, Habib the charismatic extrovert. Mohammad played on the national team until 1976, when he came to the U.S. to study. (Others say he feared persecution by the shah's secret police.) Habib remained in Iran and became a national hero when he scored a dramatic goal from 40 yards out in a '78 World Cup qualifying match against Kuwait.

"Habib was the Iranian Kobe Bryant," says Manook Khodabakhshian, who was then a soccer announcer in Iran and now produces and hosts an Iranian radio show in Los Angeles. "Sometimes when I watch Kobe Bryant, I see Habib Khabiri. He was only 16 or 17 when he started to play for the national team. He was a very creative player. So young, such a happy guy."

In 1979 the shah abdicated and the fundamentalists took over. Habib, who had apparently fallen under the political sway of one of his teammates, Hassan Nayeb-Ajha (now a leader of the leftist muslim guerrilla Mujahedin forces based in Iraq trying to topple the Islamic fundamentalists), was eventually arrested. For several years he was one of Iran's "disappeared," lost in that country's gulag. Legend has it that the authorities repeatedly offered to set him free if he would denounce the Mujahedin, but Habib refused. Sometime in 1984, Habib was told that he would be set free the next morning. But when he was awakened, Habib was led out to the Wall of Allah Akhbar—Arabic for "God is great"—where he was executed. There has never been official acknowledgement of his death, which only intensifies the potency of his story.

Mohammad, who says he returned to Iran shortly after Habib's death, is understandably reluctant to discuss his brother, but many young Iranians openly revere Habib Khabiri. "They don't think of him as a terrorist, as a Mujahedin," says Khodabakhshian. "They talk of him the way Americans talk of James Dean, the rebel without the cause."

ALI PARVIN, WHO OPERATES a small automobile dealership in downtown Tehran, was one of the greatest players Iran has known. He was the playmaker for the national team in the '70s, and if public sentiment had prevailed, he would still be coaching the team.

Anti-American rhetoric is still big in Iran, which puts extra pressure on players as the team prepares for its match with the U.S.    (Simon Bruty)

He held that job five years ago when Iran attempted to qualify for the 1994 World Cup, which was held in the U.S. His team played badly in regional qualifying and was beaten by two of Iran's other great political enemies, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Parvin, who did not leave his hotel room for 48 hours after the final defeat, was fired by the Iranian Soccer Federation a few days later.

Yet Parvin's reputation could not be deflated so easily. Portraits of Khomeini are everywhere in Tehran—on billboards, painted on the sides of buildings, in framed pictures hung on the walls of every government and commercial office, printed on the money—but it is Parvin of whom the people speak most affectionately. To this day his name is sung in the 100,000-seat stadium of his former club, Perspolis. "Ali-aaaay Parveen!" This even though he has not visited a stadium in two years.

Without Parvin's leadership, the national team was in disarray. The new coach, Mohammad Mayeli Kohan, seems to have been chosen more for his politics than his soccer knowledge, and there were reports of a fistfight in the dressing room between Kohan and some of his players. Some Iranians even suggested that their government was happy to see the team fail. After the 1979 revolution, the Islamists controlling the government frowned on soccer, considering it an unhealthy intrusion from the West. Some hard-liners argue that the U.S. is using the upcoming World Cup match as a ploy to humanize Americans and break down the political will of the Iranian people.

Despite this turmoil and intrigue, Iran displayed a strong offense during early qualifying matches and only needed to beat a patsy, Qatar, to secure a berth in the upcoming World Cup. Qatar had never scored a goal against Iran, but on Nov. 7, 1997, Qatar won 2-0. In Iran three fans died of heart attacks while watching the match on television. Kohan was fired the next day, and a Brazilian, Valdeir Vieira, was hired to coach a team made up of players who had, like many Brazilians, learned the game on the streets. With the exception of three who play in Germany's Bundesliga—the attackers Khodadad Azizi, Karim Bagheri and Ali Daei—the players compete in Iran's semipro league.

Just three weeks after losing to Qatar, Iran scored two miraculous goals in the last 14 minutes of regulation to move past Australia and qualify for the final berth in the 32-team World Cup field. Millions of Iranians burst into the streets to celebrate. Young women were seen brazenly pulling off their black scarves, dancing with men and in some cases drinking alcohol in defiance of Islamic law. This street party went on for hours—and the authorities did not try to stop any of it. To do so would have been unpatriotic. Instead, they fired Vieira. He had become too popular, and therefore too dangerous.

IN THE FIRST WEEK OF MAY in Tehran, devout Muslims marked the Islamic Shiite holiday of Ashura. Men wore black mourning clothes in recognition of the martyr Husayn, grandson of the prophet Muhammad, who was among those massacred at the Battle of Karbala in 680 A.D.; thousands of men and boys marched through the streets to the beating of drums while whipping their own backs in penance with heavy strands of chain. At the same time, in the city's alleys, in its public parks and even on the grounds of the new holy shrine to Khomeini, children and men were playing soccer.

In the gorgeous Laleh Park, a group of young men playing soccer on this somber holy day say they are looking forward to the World Cup because it is an opportunity to begin a nonpolitical relationship with Americans. Their complaints, they emphasize, are with the government of the U.S., not with its people. They know of America only from satellite television and contraband videos, and what they hear from relatives who live there.

On the night of June 21, the streets of Tehran will be empty as people crowd around the most revolutionary of all Western inventions, their televisions, to watch the match against the U.S. Most observers say the Iranian team has little chance of prevailing, partly because it has few world-class players but also because it is still roiling with controversy. In January the Iranian Soccer Federation hired yet another coach, Tomislav Ivic of Croatia, who has coached several top clubs in Europe, but after a 7-1 exhibition loss on May 19, he was fired and replaced by Jalal Talebi, his Iranian assistant. The team has now gone through four coaches in seven months.

Just a few weeks before getting sacked, Ivic was in the lobby of Tehran's Laleh Hotel trying to explain soccer tactics to the president of the Iranian Soccer Federation, a political appointee who knows little about the game. "This is the way to beat the Americans!" Ivic shouted in his zeal to share some of his wisdom and experience. Unimpressed, the president walked out accompanied by his righthand man, Mohammad Khabiri, the brother of Habib. As a vice president of the federation, Mohammad is an official in the fundamentalist government that executed his brother, drawing his political power—as Habib did—from soccer, the simplest game and the world's most complicated sport.

Some hard-liners argue that the U.S. is using the World Cup match as a ploy to humanize Americans and break down the political will of Iranians.

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