Sam Farzaneh

No, I was not expecting people cheering for Iran's national team.

I was expecting more booing, which they actually started with booing the national anthem.

And all of a sudden, as soon as the game started, all I was hearing whenever the ball was on the Iranian side, whenever they had the ball,

It was cheers.

And it was interesting for me.

Even some of those people who were carrying the Lion and Sun flag that was for the pre-revolutionary in Iran, even those people, I was seeing them, they were cheering for the national team.

Where I was sitting, there were a couple of women who constantly, they were cheering the New Zealand team and they were cheering them in Persian, which was interesting.

I think none of the other fans of Kiwis could understand that they were doing that.

Exactly.

And other than that, some of them were considering this team not as Iran's national team.

They are thinking about them as more like the Islamic Republic's team.

Some of the protesters outside of the stadium were saying that this is not even the Islamic Republic's team.

It's the IRGC's team.

And they were saying, OK, if you are going to that stadium, you are going to watch IRGC playing.

So the temperature is hot and it was amazing that I saw some people are still cheering for the team.

Definitely.

And it's interesting, just a few moments ago, Iran's head coach, he said that I'm really happy about the game.

He said this was one of the best games of this tournament, but I'm not happy about the result.

It's a very big inflatable that fills the space, and I wanted the viewer to be confronted with something that's right up against your body.

I mean, sculpture is all about your body.