Past and present World Cups collide as Beiranvand first gives Iran inspiration, then hope | Alexander Abnos

As they prepared for the future, the Iran national team looked to its past. Before Sunday’s matchup against a No 9-ranked Belgium with plenty of stars, the team was played a motivational video; a clip containing what midfielder Alireza Jahanbakhsh said were the indelible moments of Iran’s past two World Cup appearances. These included dogged defending, aggressive closing down, and the few moments of on-field triumph against world powers like Spain and Portugal that have characterized this latest generation of a proud footballing hotbed. In and of itself, this is not an unusual tactic for teams looking for confidence ahead of a big matchup, which Sunday’s fixture certainly was. But in a coincidence Saman Ghoddos called “crazy,” this backward-looking video ended up foreshadowing the biggest moment of the 0-0 draw that puts Iran on the precipice of its best-ever performance at a World Cup. Goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand’s desperate, lunging save in the 59th minute seemingly left all 70,317 fans at Los Angeles Stadium with mouths agape. But in a sense it was also ordinary. Beiranvand has had a signature World Cup moment before, saving a Cristiano Ronaldo penalty in 2018. And he has had a similar impact on a goalline scramble, blocking an effort in a 1-0 win for Iran against Morocco in that same competition. This, Ghoddos said, was the moment the team had focused on in the video. “The same situation happened now,” he said. …