On the eve of the decisive match, the US coach apologized to the Iranians.
The press conference of Gregg Berhalter, the head coach of the US national soccer team, and Tyler Adams, the captain of the team, was held on the eve of the crucial Iran-US match with the presence of select Iranian journalists. The questions from Iranian journalists, which were sometimes highly political and completely non-sporting, surprised and drew complaints from other journalists.
Following the pressure from journalists and their political questions, the US coach was forced to react and apologize regarding the images of the Iranian flag used on social media by the official account of the US national team.
Despite the fact that maximum care should have been taken in using images and the flag of Iran, this minor detail in some posts perhaps should not have been exaggerated to this extent in a sports press conference.