
Next such opportunity for Ahmadinejad was to turn up at the world cup qualifying match between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Again the expectation was that Iran would easily defeat Saudi Arabia on the home ground. Ahmadinejad is known for his love of the game and rarely misses a photo opportunity with Iran's football players. Surely the football fans would share some of their enthusiasm with his presence at the stadium and he would take some credit from that for his popularity.
Yet this is how the events unfolded according to the Iranian website
'The president turned up at the stadium 30 minutes after the game had started. Loud speakers announced his entry and welcomed him, but the 100,000 crowd remained silent as if they were in a shock.
Another attempt to get the crowds on their feet was made at half time. While the players were in the changing rooms, the loud speaker at the stadium twice asked the crowds, to hoist and wave the flags and cheer loudly for the national team in the presence of 'our beloved president'. Again no reaction! The crowds remained silent. Prior to Ahmadinejad turning up, the crowd were ecstatic in their support of the national team. It was obvious that the request by the loud speaker was a naive attempt at soliciting the crowd's support for Ahmadinejad but they were not falling for it.
When Iran lost against all expectations in the last ten minutes, silence turned into anger, the crowd started jeering at the regime's pet coach, Ali Daii, at Ahamadinejad himself and at the regime in general and the LEF had to move in to control and push back the crowd.
The cartoon shown here, depicts Ali Daii, who was removed as the national coach after Iran's defeat, saying 'I think the president's presence raised the spirits of the other team'.