Carlos Queiroz walked in to the sound of applause, which is not exactly the norm for a pre-match press conference at a World Cup.
In the twilight years of his coaching career, the 69-year-old has found a level of appreciation he never enjoyed at Manchester United and particularly not during his troubled spell managing Real Madrid. At a time of deep division and turmoil in Iran, he has emerged as a rare and much-needed unifying figure.
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Among Iran’s players and indeed among the journalists who follow that team, Queiroz inspires a kind of devotion.
If his return for a second spell just months before this World Cup was regarded as an act of salvation, his frequent declarations here in Qatar — condemning the inquisitions from British journalists, referencing the UK’s immigration policy and American gun crime and biting back at Jurgen Klinsmann after the former Germany and USMNT coach spoke disparagingly of Iranian football “culture” — have been seen as a defence of his adopted nation’s honour.
He has got his team playing too.
They were poor in losing their opening game to England, but they hit back with an impressive 2-0 win over Wales on Friday. Now comes a huge clash with the Americans at Al Thumama Stadium tonight (Tuesday). Victory will take Iran through to the World Cup knockout phase for the first time. Even a draw will be enough for Queiroz’s team unless Wales beat England.
It would be a remarkable achievement for Iran, given how shambolic they looked in that 6-2 defeat by England and given the tensions that came to the surface when the fans whistled and his players seemed to mumble half-heartedly through the national anthem before that game, in protest at the oppression of women under President Ebrahim Raisi’s regime.
To unify the team, the fans and the media in such challenging circumstances is some challenge. But Queiroz appears to have done it.
He arrived in Qatar to find journalists — and not exclusively ones from the UK — asking him whether Iran should be allowed to play in this World Cup, given the country’s treatment of women and alleged supply of military drones to Russia during the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. By yesterday, Iranian journalists were asking US coach Gregg Berhalter about racism and inflation in his country and why he hasn’t demanded the removal of an American Navy ship that’s off the coast of Iran.
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Queiroz, so feisty and confrontational in his media engagements at this tournament, toed a much more diplomatic line on Monday. He declined to be dragged into any further discussion of Klinsmann, having previously called for the German’s resignation from the FIFA technical study group, or into the controversy surrounding US Soccer’s use on social media of the Iranian flag with the emblem of the Islamic Republic removed.
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You can easily imagine Queiroz using that to fuel his players’ motivation — not that they will be short of it for such a high-stakes game against the Americans — but he insisted it was not necessary.
“If, after 42 years in this game, I believed I could still win games with these mental games, I think I (would have) learned nothing about the game,” he said. “This is not the case.”
Instead, he praised the USA, fondly recalling his days at the NY/NJ MetroStars of MLS in the mid-1990s and expressing admiration for the progress he has witnessed in the game there since then. He said the US — rather than England, Wales or his own team — had been the most impressive side in Group B so far here, adding that over the past two decades the Americans have made “the jump from ‘soccer’ to ‘football’.”
There followed a monologue in which Queiroz suggested the great lesson from this World Cup was that football’s “mission” is to “create an entertainment and during 90 minutes to make the people happy”, rather than discuss non-sporting matters.
“I was born in a place in Africa,” he said, referring to Mozambique. “Some of you know my background. I used to go and work in some places where kids don’t eat for two days and have nothing to eat or drink, no clothes to wear. But if you give them a football, you can’t imagine the change in their faces, from sadness to happiness. This is our mission.
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“I try to keep loyal to what my father taught me. He said, ‘Don’t lie to football. Don’t kill yourself because of the game’. I will be loyal to football and try to respect it, but there are other things that are important for all of our society.
“We have our solidarity with all human and humanitarian causes all over the world, whatever they are and whoever they are. You talk about human rights, racism, kids who die in school shootings. We are in solidarity with all of that, but here our mission is to bring smiles to the people for at least 90 minutes. That is our mission.”
At this point, the Iranian journalists applauded Queiroz once more. There was also approval when he suggested Iran’s motivation “is probably more than for the US” because they are trying to reach the knockout stage for the first time, “so for us it’s more special than for them”.
Queiroz is an unlikely populist and an even less likely source of headlines.
During his spells as Sir Alex Ferguson’s assistant at United, his occasional media engagements tended to be exercises in techno-speak rather than, to use one of his favourite words, polemics.
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It is as if he has been transformed by this World Cup — and by this job in charge of Iran at such a challenging time, trying to ensure the unrest in the country and the hostility of the Western media unites his players rather than divides them.
It is tempting to call it the Ferguson approach.
United’s legendary former manager would go to extreme lengths to create a siege mentality in their dressing room — “us against the world” — even if in those instances it was merely a case of trying to convince his players that the media, the referees and the entire football establishment were all rooting for their frequent rivals for trophies Arsenal. In the case of Iran, “us against the world” stems from something considerably less trivial.
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Ferguson and Queiroz were fire and ice at Old Trafford. Ferguson instilled a never-say-die spirit and his assistant brought a more dispassionate, cerebral approach at a time when United needed to add another dimension to their play, particularly in the Champions League. The players admired his coaching and his tactical nous, even if they found his training sessions monotonous.
“I think all the players saw strengths and weaknesses in Carlos,” Gary Neville says in Red, his autobiography. “There’s no doubt he was instrumental in helping us evolve as a team, becoming more sophisticated and patient in Europe. He had us playing different formations, weaning us off our traditional 4-4-2.
“Tactically he was excellent, but his day-to-day training could be very dry. Some days things would feel very bogged down in specifics, stopping the play to rerun one pass. Carlos was different from any coach I had at United and he would be quite open that he didn’t want us playing small-sided games all the time. It was as if he didn’t want us having too much fun in the week, so we would be hungrier on Saturday.”
Roy Keane’s differences with the Iran coach are well known.
The former United captain said on ITV last week that he wishes he had punched Queiroz for being “really disrespectful to me” in the strained final weeks of his Old Trafford career.
Keane states in his autobiography that during their final, most explosive argument, he not only accused Queiroz of a lack of loyalty for taking the Real Madrid job, but asked him pointedly, “Do you always make love to your wife in one position?”.
Keane’s point was that United’s players were bored of Queiroz’s training sessions and would benefit from mixing things up a bit. “I haven’t a clue why I said that — and still don’t,” Keane said.
On ITV last week, former United defender Patrice Evra echoed Neville’s praise for Queiroz’s tactical sophistication, but described him as “someone who you feel like he never smiles”.
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Yet here Queiroz is at this World Cup, three months off turning 70 — “one of the last dinosaurs of the old guard” as he described himself in 2014, never mind now — espousing football’s role in spreading happiness and joy. “Our mission,” as he repeated on Monday, “is to bring smiles to the people for at least 90 minutes.”
Queiroz is right, of course. And rather than mellowing in his old age, it seems as if this vastly experienced, multi-lingual coach, who has coached in 10 different countries on five continents, has adapted to the particular demands of this particular job at this particular time. He finds himself needing to appeal to hearts as much as minds.
Statesmanlike might not be the first word that springs to mind to describe his approach in Qatar, given how he has been in some of his dealings with the international media (and indeed with Klinsmann). But such antagonism serves the wider purpose of trying to unite his players, the fans and the media behind the national team’s cause at a time of profound division in Iran.
That is what he means by trying to make the Iranian people smile.
Should they reach the knockout phase here, at the United States’ expense, the celebrations back home will bring people together like little else could.
(Top photo: Getty Images; design: Sam Richardson)
