Crossword XXIX: ‘98

by Sahar Tavakoli

For those of you hoping to complete this crossword without any kind of assist, I’d suggest skipping this note.

A week and a half ago, when I began setting this crossword, Iran’s national football team, Team Melli, were still possible contenders for the knockout round of this year’s World Cup. Last Friday, June 26, they finished 1-1 against Egypt’s Pharaohs. The following day, Algeria and Austria played to a 3-3 draw. Today, as this crossword is posted, Iran are well and truly out of contention, unable to advance either by group position or through the ranking of the Cup’s best third-placed teams.

This is not an unfamiliar outcome. In 1978, 1998, 2006, 2014, 2018, and 2022, Iran exited the tournament before the knockout rounds. In 1998, the setting for this puzzle’s theme, Team Melli both failed to advance beyond the group stage and emerged victorious in the competition’s most significant match.

Contrary to whatever James Shirley or Hamlet seem to think is going on, the great leveller of king and commoner is not death—it’s football. If this sounds trite or clichéd, then it is because the statement is worth repeating. Iran’s 1998 victory over the United States was the kind of geopolitical spectacle Eurovision could only dream of staging. Behind the match that everyone remembers, though, is my personal favourite: their 1997 World Cup qualifier, played against the Australian Socceroos.

It was played in two legs: first, in Tehran’s Azadi Stadium, where, convinced that the national capital lacked modern plumbing, the Socceroos travelled with their own supply of water; and, second, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, where Iran claimed its place in the World Cup. In Australia, after the loss, the national mood sat somewhere between bewilderment and offence. Team Melli had arrived in Melbourne with three Asian Cup titles behind them, the previous year’s tournament top scorer in Ali Daei, its MVP in Khodadad Azizi, and a captain known across the region as the Eagle of Asia: Ahmad Reza Abedzadeh. Still, in Australia, it was inconceivable that a team from this imagined non-potable backwater could present any serious challenge to the Socceroos, let alone send them out of the running. One of my uncles* recorded the match on VHS and replayed it at family dinners until the DVD age rendered the ritual obsolete. Some three decades on, Khodadad Azizi’s 80th-minute goal is still thrilling.

This is not a crossword posted in spite of some result. As in 1998, Team Melli do not need to progress past the group stage to be celebrated. As in 1997, their presence in the tournament was the outcome of their skill. They played as though the next round were still reachable, because, until it wasn’t, it was.

*My daei, as a matter of fact.

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Solutions to Crossword XXIX: You Give Me Fever:

The winners are:

Rosie Wayper

Will Sharp

Well done, and thanks for playing!

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