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Kevin's Story: Soccer, Heritage, and the VHS Tape of Goals
At 24:06 · chapter starts 24:05
The story shifts to Kevin, Farhad's son, who grew up in Ohio as an Iranian-American. His love of soccer began with an old VHS tape — '50 greatest World Cup goals' — that he and his father watched repeatedly together. One tape became boxes of taped matches stacked in the living room. Kevin started playing in a neighbourhood league; Farhad took him to meet American players like Brad Friedel and Brian McBride. Soccer became more than a sport — it became the primary thread connecting Kevin to his Iranian side and to his father. Their typical evening together, he says, is cooking Persian food and turning on a game. Farhad calls Kevin an 'encyclopedia of soccer,' capable of reciting what happened in specific games from when he was 11.
When Kevin was 11, his father told him Iran had qualified for the 1998 World Cup — a defining family memory tied to his Iranian heritage.
In 1998, when Iran beat the US 2-1 at the World Cup, Iranian-American Kevin was 11 years old, sitting in an Ohio restaurant surrounded by American fans, quietly cheering for both teams. That game was the first time his two identities were pitted against each other in the sport he loved — and it wouldn't be the last.
Iran beat the United States 2-1 in the 1998 World Cup — a result that was later used as government propaganda by the Iranian regime.
