World Cup firsts for Iran and Uzbekistan

0:00This week on Sources and Methods, we unpack the Memorandum of Understanding signed by President Trump, which he says will pave the way for a formal peace deal with Iran. But if this really is the beginning of an end to the war, who won and who lost? Listen to sources and methods as we talk it through with NPR reporters in Beirut, Tel Aviv, and Cairo. You can find us on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Today on State of the World, World Cup firsts for Iran and Uzbekistan. You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening.

0:39It's Monday, June 22nd. I'm Greg Dixon. Now that World Cup games have taken over nearly every television around the globe, today we bring you two stories of World Cup firsts in this year's tournament. A double header, if you will. Eh? No? Okay. In a few minutes, with Iran playing its matches in the U.S., It's the first time a host country welcomes a team from a country they're at war with. But first, we go to Uzbekistan. It's the first time they, or any Central Asian nation, has appeared in the tournament. NPR's Charles Maines went there and found out it may be a sign of bigger changes underway.

1:20In the heart of Central Asia, soccer starts here. Kids in a patch of grass with dreams of a larger stage that no longer seems so out of reach. Uzbekistan is champion of the win. For Uzbekistan's team, the White Wolves, the World Cup debut has been 36 years in the making. Star forward Abosbek Fazulaev says it's a dream come true. For the first time to represent our country in a big stage, it will be a huge honor. The country's president, Shavkat Nurzoyoyev, has gone further, touting the team as a symbol of the new Uzbekistan, part of a so-called golden generation of Uzbek youth now making their mark in sports, culture and science, even chess.

2:07That success has been a long time coming for a nation that, like much of Central Asia, struggled to emerge from the chaos of the collapse of the Soviet Union. It's really a land of talents. Rafshan Irmatov is vice president of Uzbekistan's football association. He says years of government investments and youth development programs have finally paid off. Today's result is not coming by chance. Uzbekistan doing investing a lot for future. Several young Uzbek players on the national team have established themselves as stars in Europe and elsewhere, none brighter than one name you'll hear and hear mangled often.

2:47It's actually Husanov, Abdukhodor Husanov The 22-year-old Uzbek defender has quickly become a mainstay At Manchester City in the British Premier League In a pinch-me moment for fans back home Imagining that somebody from Uzbekistan would be playing in the main squad of that team It felt like it was unbelievable Donyor Umar Khajaev runs the popular Uzbek football blog Taktika I am feeling the goosebumps being somebody who just runs a blog on football, but I can imagine what kind of boost of confidence that gives to younger kids who want to be footballers. That includes girls and women. Last year, Uzbekistan's team qualified for the Women's Asian Cup for the first time in over two decades.

3:32Ohina Akbarova, a forward on the national under-17 squad, says even with that progress, her generation wants more. We want to see another level, so I am going to play board. I want to. I dream. That would have been unlikely just a few years ago, when laws in this Muslim-majority nation forbade women freedom of travel without permission from husbands or fathers. Uzbekistan's recent football success has coincided with President Mirza Yoyev implementing reforms, opening the country up to travel and investment following years of isolation and dictatorship under former President Islam Karimov. Well, thank you very much.

4:10It's a great honor to be with the president of Uzbekistan. Yerziyoyev met with President Trump last year at the United Nations, part of a wider geopolitical repositioning as the new Uzbekistan and its Central Asian neighbors forged ties beyond Russia to pursue closer relations and trade with China and the U.S., including the Trump administration with its interest in critical minerals. But some argue amid all that deal-making, pro-democratic reforms haven't kept pace. objectively, we do have a lot of major changes. That's Dior Rafieva, a lawyer and occasional government critic. Rafieva acknowledges there are more freedoms in Uzbekistan now, but says too often they exist more on paper than in reality.

4:50And she says with all the government's promotion of sporting accomplishments, there's some rebranding going on here. I think the success in sports, this is kind of image-washing. They would say, oh, new Uzbekistan. Maybe they do live in a new Uzbekistan. In other words, not everyone does. And there are just naysayers out there. Tashkent local Dershad Husanov tells me he doesn't drink, but watching White Wolves football sure makes him want to. I want to hit someone or break my television, he says, adding that government resources spent on football should go elsewhere. The irony, his ability to criticize the authorities, is a small sign of how far Uzbekistan has come in recent years, and just maybe how his nation's soccer team can pleasantly surprise at this World Cup, now that at long last its players have taken the field.

5:43Charles Maines, NPR News, Tashkent, Uzbekistan. We move from Group K to Group G now, and the Iran national team. Their games are in the U.S., but the team is being forced to stay and train south of the border in Tijuana, Mexico. NPR's Eder Peralta went there to see how Mexicans feel about hosting the Iranian team. The Marriott in Tijuana is surrounded by a chain-link fence. The only ones staying there are members of Iran's national team. Fausto Vadillo, who is 10 years old, presses his face against the fence.

6:23He's never seen a World Cup player in his life. Now he was here hugging his panini sticker book. One autograph, he says, is all he needs. Last month, the U.S. said it didn't want Iranian players training on its soil, so the Mexican president said her nation would host, and the local soccer team in Tijuana, the Xolos, offered their stadium as a training ground. Ever since the team arrived, people have gathered to see the players leave the hotel for practice.

6:55Jose Reyes, who came with his kid, says the geopolitics of this escapes him. What the U.S. did was disrespectful, he says. The World Cup unites borders, unites humanity. Right now, there is no war, he says. we're just united to watch the games. But Victor Clark Alfaro, a professor who studies U.S.-Mexico relations at San Diego State University, says it's not as simple as that.

7:33He says part of the reason Mexico welcomed Iran was to send a message of sovereignty to the United States. But Clark says this is also a complicated moment to send that kind of message. It's a moment where President Trump has been threatening military action against Mexico, and it's a moment when the U.S. and Mexico are deep into negotiations to renew a North American free trade agreement.

8:00The big question, he says, is whether this overture to Iran will inflame tensions between the U.S. and Mexico. To Clark, it's not a risk Mexico should be taking. But across Tijuana, no one seems too worried about any American backlash. Kids playing football worry that they'll lose the team quickly because, well, Iran is not Spain and they may not even make it past the group stage.

8:30And a short distance away on the bridge that leads to San Diego, merchants are simply busy selling the jerseys of the Mexican national team. No one was selling the Iranian one, but as I ask around, Francisco Gutierrez shouts, we are all Iranians. We Mexicans always go for the underdog. It's about our history, he says. After the Mexican-American War, Mexico lost half its territory to the U.S.

9:07Back at the hotel, the crowd grows. There's a group of Australians who came for the World Cup. There are a couple of Iranian-Americans who came from San Diego. And Fausto, the 10-year-old, clinging to the chain-link fence. And suddenly, the Iranian team comes out of the hotel.

9:26Mehdi Toremi, the team star who once played for Inter Milan. Alireza Bien Ranvan, the goalkeeper.

9:37Fausto doesn't get one autograph. He gets three, and he can't stop smiling. Adapralta, NPR News, Tijuana, Mexico.

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