Football and the media construction of Iranian national identity during the FIFA World Cup 2018 and AFC Asian Cup 2019

Elite sport success in international tournaments is supposed to play an important role shaping national identity. In this article, we explore if and how applies the Iranian context. The current study made use of a Google alert with title ‘Iran Men’s National Football Team’, general content analysis media. analytic focus was on media coverage football team at 2018 FIFA World Cup 2019 AFC Asian Cup. All relevant newspaper articles before, during, after Iran’s matches were reviewed, coded, analysed. We developed four main themes expressing identity context aforesaid events: ‘united passion’, ‘determined conscientious’, ‘oppressed but great’, ‘emotion-ridden’. It concluded that political historical references used by contribute invention reproduction through aforementioned sporting tournaments.