| | PASADENA, Calif. -- Long before half time, T-shirt vendors
ran out of Iranian flags. In the stands, fans wearing red, white
and green shirts sat in groups to form stadium-wide human banners.
Nearly 50,000 Iranian-American soccer aficionados from across the country converged on the Rose Bowl Sunday for the exhibition rematch between the U.S. men's team and Iran, which ended in a 1-1 tie.
|  | | An Iranian-American soccer fan waves an Iranian flag at the Rose Bowl. |
"This is just to show the two countries can get together and
have some fun," said Shaeda Moghaddam, who lives in the San
Francisco Bay area. "This is more like a door opening for both
countries."
Moghaddam said she's not much of a soccer fan, but she had to support her home team.
"I win either way," she said.
The teams hadn't played each other since Iran beat the United States 2-1 during the 1998 World Cup in France.
But this was not a party without mixed feelings. It was the
first official visit by a high-profile Iranian sports team since
the 1979 revolution that brought down the Shah of Iran and brought
the religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini to government power.
Emotions ran high.
In the sea of red, white and green, distinctions were evident.
Some Iran fans waved the lion-crested flag of Iran under the Shah,
while others held up the newer Muslim republic flag, with a red
insignia that means "Allah" or God in Farsi.
"We don't like the new flag," said a group of girls carrying
the older flag outside the stadium during half time. "We don't
like that sign. We're not Muslim."
The fans represented a diverse Iranian-American community in the United States and particularly in Southern California, where
they've built their largest home outside Iran.
Jews and Muslims mixed in the drink lines. Older Iranians who remember the revolution mingled among knots of twenty-something, U.S.-born Iranian-Americans with vague memories of the Ayatollah. Activists handed out fliers near the concession stands while
entrepreneurs sold T-shirts and slipped Web site ads under
windshield wipers in the parking lot.
"Most of the business has been Iran," said Frank Gomez, behind the counter at a T-shirt stall. "Every Iranian flag has been
bought."
The American fans were almost an afterthought. Many of them huddled in a corner section of the stadium for solidarity, wearing
outsized Uncle Sam red, white and blue top hats and U.S. flags for
capes.
"It makes us get louder," said Sergio Gonzalez, 17, of Los
Angeles. "There's a whole bunch of them, but we're smaller, we're
louder and we're better."
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