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USA v Iran: The historic 2000 friendly match planned to bring countries together

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By Mani Djazmi
BBC Sport
A female Iranian fan watches her team take on the USA, in the 2000 friendly match played in PasadenaGetty Images

Iran's visit to the United States took place two years after their World Cup group-stage win at 98

Paris, 11 July 1998. On the eve of the World Cup final, in a first-floor room in a building on the Champs-Elysees, an idea for a football friendly was hatched that would lead to death threats, an FBI decoy and the closure of American airspace.

That night, a media reception by US Soccer to promote the United States' hosting of the 1999 Women's World Cup was in full swing.

As the gentle currents of small talk circulated among suited attendees, two acquaintances were brought face to face.

Mehrdad Masoudi was an Iranian coming to the end of his time working as the Canadian Soccer Association's communications director. Hank Steinbrecher was the General-Secretary of US Soccer. In football federations and confederations, very little happens without the signature of the 'GS'.

Three weeks earlier, the two men had been in Lyon to watch Iran beat the USA 2-1. This group-stage encounter was one of the most politically charged matches in World Cup history because of the enmity between the nations.

Iran had been under US sanctions since 52 diplomats were taken hostage in the American embassy in Tehran in 1979, the year of the Islamic Revolution that toppled the pro-American Iranian monarch, the Shah.

But on the day of the match, in a US presidential address, Bill Clinton said he hoped it would be a step towards "ending the estrangement between our nations".

Meanwhile, before kick-off, the American players were showered with gifts from their opponents.

Irrespective of the result, the match had been a diplomatic triumph and the occasion was still fresh in the minds of Masoudi and Steinbrecher when they met, albeit for contrasting reasons.

"I said, 'Hank, how about repeating that">