Iran’s Road to Russia… A Mammalian Perspective!

Persianfootball.com (Behrou G.) – TEHRAN, When Shapur Gharib opened his 1975 cult classic Mamal Amircayi, with a montage of football scenes and the plot beginning outside the iconic Azadi stadium, he had no idea that Team Melli would conduct their first ever successful World Cup qualifying campaign and earn a trip to the Americas two years later.

Since then, the Iranians have qualified for every World Cup held in South America or Europe when they have participated in the qualification process – with the exception of Italy 1990.

With every segment of the Iranian society recovering from the drawn-out Iran-Iraq war and after an 11 year hiatus from World Cup qualifying play, Team Melli was eliminated from that competition with a single loss.

It is a painful memory, but one with valuable lessons that have not been forgotten – the importance of both goal difference and playing every match as a final play-off match to reach the World Cup.

Accordingly, the frustration of the fans and visions of doom and gloom are understandable after Team Melli’s opener against Turkmenistan on the road to Russia – despite the clash having taken place in Daşoguz, the official home of the “door to hell”.

But the fans should in no way scale back their passionate and unconditional support for Team Melli. After all, lack of fan support or self-belief often translates into a self-fulfilling prophecy in football.

And there are plenty of reasons for optimism… Although there have been only three other occasions when Iran opened their campaign without a win – 1974, 1994 and 2010 – on all three occasions Team Melli bounced back not only to reach the final round, but to do so as group winners.

If there is one further lesson to be learnt from Gharib’s classic and all the Mammali jokes it popularized within the Iranian subculture of humour in the decades that followed, it was that dismembered or dead, little Mammali always made a comeback.

So, as Team Melli fans get ready for a rare Mammalian aestivation [powering down during the summer months] for a second year in a row, they should do so happily and without losing track of the most important statistic for Russia 2018…

… Excluding the understandable blimp for Italy 1990, Team Melli has been successful in every qualifying campaign for a World Cup on European soil since 1974 – despite as many as 3 losses and 6 draws!