0:14

i'm

0:17

available

0:22

Mom,

0:27

kick the ball.

0:29

I grew up playing soccer.

0:32

My

0:32

mom hated when I called it that. I

0:34

can't see you. That's okay. She called

0:36

it for boys. I

0:42

love it. On Christmas, my

0:44

daddy brought me my soccer

0:47

ball and my punch. It's

0:49

Christmas day. I'm nine, and

0:51

I can't get the ball past my mother. She

0:54

does not

0:54

care that I'm a kid. My

0:57

mother played on club teams in

0:59

Reno, Nevada for the past

1:01

forty years. I

1:03

remember her coming home after matches when I

1:05

was in middle school. Telling

1:08

us in Farsi that she scored a goal.

1:13

In my family, our love for

1:15

soccer was constant and

1:17

clear. But living

1:19

in America and being from Iran.

1:21

What?

1:26

That

1:27

was more complicated.

1:28

We only two birthday

1:31

songs, one in English,

1:34

and one in Farsi. I

1:38

often felt like that. split

1:40

into. At school, I

1:42

was ashamed of telling people where my family

1:44

was from. It's

1:45

not like I was fully aware of what was

1:47

happening in the world when the Gulf

1:49

War was the Iranian hostage

1:52

crisis. But

1:53

going up in the nineties, in Reno, Nevada,

1:56

I knew being from the Middle

1:58

East, wasn't something to be

1:59

excited about.

2:02

But I remember when Iran played

2:04

the US in the nineteen ninety

2:06

eight World Cup. Suddenly,

2:08

for

2:09

a few hours, my family was

2:10

transported. The hyphen in our

2:13

identity dropped. We were

2:15

fully Iranian again. ninety

2:17

Minutes of soccer history tonight in

2:19

Lyon.

2:23

That day, I was clear

2:25

which side I was on. In

2:27

our tiny living room, a portal had

2:29

been open, and

2:30

there were no rules. When a

2:32

goal was scored, whoever had the remote

2:34

would flip to the Spanish channel to capture the

2:36

energy of each goal. Pillows

2:38

with Deepgram,

2:39

my brother would scream, shimba. We

2:42

would tackle each other. And he's crazy.

2:45

And he's rude. We'd both

2:47

be sent for periods of time to cool off in

2:49

our rooms But even my parents

2:51

would be cussing and shouting and cheering,

2:53

soccer was our greatest sense of national

2:56

pride. Our way to beat the big guy,

2:58

the US. who was so

3:00

intrinsic to our exile.

3:05

And

3:05

then we went back to reality. I

3:08

was an E1, American

3:09

girl again.

3:13

When

3:13

I think about all of the keepsake my

3:15

mother could have taken with her from Iran

3:17

and passed down to me. The

3:19

language, the history, the stories

3:22

of her life. Why

3:23

was soccer? most important

3:25

to her.

3:26

That question has led me to

3:29

some of the most dedicated

3:30

soccer fans in the world.

3:32

All women and

3:34

we're going to start with the story

3:36

of one girl.

3:44

Hi, Zena.

3:46

That's my mom.

3:49

Can you say your name,

3:50

Zayna Sajoffi?

3:52

This tape is from the summer of

3:54

twenty twenty. I'm on Skype

3:56

with Zenapp Sahafi, and my mom

3:58

is translating. Zenappra,

3:59

put your phone on airplane mode.

4:02

Mom, Efarsi, or

4:04

trying to. I think

4:05

that's kind of English y.

4:07

Shimane is working.

4:09

We're good. We're going. We're good. I'm gonna

4:12

pull myself some coffee. I'm so happy.

4:14

Wait. Hey. Let me give you one

4:16

minute. No. I'm good. Go ahead. I

4:18

can multitask.

4:20

Okay.

4:22

can baseball

4:24

Zayna, my mom and I are

4:26

thousands of miles away from one another

4:28

the first time

4:29

we meet. I'm

4:30

in New York, my mom is in Reno,

4:33

and Zena is in Turkey. It's

4:35

seven o'clock at night where she is.

4:37

On my video screen,

4:40

I

4:40

can see Zayna sitting on the floor

4:42

leaning against a large white

4:44

wall. Over her head hangs

4:46

a fluorescent light She's

4:48

wearing bright red lipstick and

4:50

a bright red soccer jersey, the

4:52

color of her favorite team. Persepolis.

4:57

Zayma has several piercings across

4:59

her lips.

5:00

The right side of her head is shaved, but

5:02

the rest of her hair is so long it

5:04

falls past her knees. Zayna

5:08

tells me she could live in a religious

5:10

family. They didn't own a TV,

5:12

so she would go to her grandmother's house to

5:15

watch games. One day, whenever

5:17

uncles ask her if she wants to go

5:19

see the players

5:19

in person. With your

5:21

mother's brother,

5:26

Yes.

5:29

They

5:29

wouldn't be going inside the stadium

5:31

to watch a game though. In

5:33

nineteen eighty one, long before Zayna

5:35

was born, women and girls were banned

5:38

from watching soccer games at stadiums

5:40

in Iran. So

5:41

her uncle would drive her to greet the

5:44

national team at the airport, and

5:46

they'd ride alongside their bus. all

5:48

the way to the national E1, waving

5:51

at the players

5:51

and screaming out their window.

5:54

She

5:54

tells me that at twelve

5:56

years old, She stood at the gate

5:59

watching the men go

5:59

in. She saw the excitement

6:02

on all the boy's faces, painted

6:04

bright colors, and radiating happiness.

6:08

At that moment,

6:09

Zenab knew that following the players

6:11

to the stadium entrance was

6:14

not enough. For the

6:15

next game, she would be watching

6:17

from inside the stadium. It

6:19

was that desire to see a game

6:22

up close in person that

6:24

changed her life.

6:26

In

6:30

the lives of so many other

6:31

girls. Today,

6:34

Zena lives in exile.

6:36

She's recently been joined by her mom,

6:39

her stepdad. and

6:41

her little brother. You know, that's nice.

6:43

that

6:46

Zenop's dream as a kid was

6:49

to be a tattoo artist. These

6:51

days when she's hopeful, it's

6:53

to be a singer.

6:55

But right now, Zainab's

6:57

life is on hold. The

6:59

Iranian government has called her

7:01

an enemy of the state.

7:04

At

7:05

this point in a three way,

7:07

Zena lights up a cigarette. She

7:10

looks tired.

7:12

She is only twenty two.

7:15

Zayna, if

7:17

you went back to Iran now, what would

7:19

happen to you? E1.

7:30

She

7:34

says they'll probably hang her.

7:37

The exhaustion, the

7:38

exile. the government threats,

7:42

all

7:42

of this for

7:43

wanting to watch soccer.

8:05

I'm Shamoli Yang from Shirazade

8:08

Productions, and some thirty further

8:10

new podcasts. This is

8:12

Pink Card. Episode one.

8:14

Red

8:17

Bull.

8:35

Modern soccer was imported into

8:37

Iran one hundred years ago.

8:40

The game arrived through a port called Albert

8:42

Dan is a teaming place where a quarter of a

8:44

million people live dedicated to one

8:46

single proposition the

8:48

refining of twenty five million tonnes a

8:50

while every year. The

8:52

British had set up

8:53

a colony in Abadon in the

8:55

early nineteen hundreds. They made a

8:57

deal with the

8:58

Iranian government, but it wasn't

9:00

really a deal. Iran's

9:02

corrupt elite got a small amount of bribe money

9:04

and the ability to

9:05

remain in power. and the

9:07

UK received almost

9:09

total control of Iran's

9:11

abundant wealth and natural

9:12

resources.

9:16

Later, the bridge would be pushed out,

9:19

but soccer

9:19

would stay. and its popularity

9:22

across Iran, the Middle East, and the

9:24

world would only grow. As

9:27

of today, two hundred and

9:29

eleven affiliated associations

9:31

are members of the multi billion

9:33

dollar institution that is FIFA.

9:35

Fifa estimates that more than five billion

9:37

people

9:37

watch the World Cup. That's

9:39

more than all the living Christians, Muslims,

9:41

and Hindus combined. And in

9:43

twenty twenty two, for the first time

9:46

ever in its history, the

9:48

World Cup is taking place in the

9:50

Middle East in Qatar.

9:52

but forty years ago,

9:55

Iran

9:55

looks set to host the first World Cup in

9:57

the region at its national stadium.

10:00

When it was built in the early seventies,

10:02

that stadium was the

10:04

largest on the planet. It was

10:06

surrounded

10:06

by a rowing river, indoor

10:09

volleyball courts, and an Olympic size

10:11

swimming pool.

10:13

The

10:14

stands held one hundred

10:16

and twenty thousand people It was

10:18

called Adi E1 Stadium

10:20

and got the nickname bee sworn

10:23

because the stadium's design

10:25

amplifies sound

10:25

like a swarm of bees.

10:32

The

10:33

stadium was built by the Shaw. who

10:35

had been the reigning dictator of

10:37

Iran for thirty years, and the

10:39

stadium was a perfect symbol

10:41

for his vision of Iran on the

10:43

global stage. Modern

10:45

Lattles.

10:45

What will happen in And in E1.

10:48

this. Frank

10:49

Sinatra hosted a concert

10:52

there in nineteen seventy five.

10:54

If you can imagine, at

10:55

that time, the stands

10:57

were filled with women and one

10:59

of the songs he sang, was

11:01

the lady as a

11:02

trend.

11:04

This is It's

11:09

my car.

11:10

Senatia's

11:11

presence highlighted the growing

11:14

shift away from the old customs

11:16

of Iran and soccer

11:18

playing at the time seen as

11:20

part of the country's quote unquote

11:22

modernization, right alongside

11:25

women's rights. The Shah's

11:27

love hate relationship with the West

11:29

would become clearer as his reign continued.

11:31

The western countries are just not used

11:33

to thinking of Iran as the major

11:35

world power. You're right. but

11:37

they will have to cope with this

11:40

development soon. But it

11:42

was confusing.

11:45

Disham made guest appearances at

11:47

Disneyland, riding a Matterhorn with his

11:49

wife, he imported the sewing

11:51

machine and other western domestic

11:53

devices. he broadcasted

11:55

American TV programs like bewitched

11:57

and country westerns all

11:59

across

11:59

Iran. But

12:01

as the shaw grew with age, he

12:03

realized that these old oil contracts

12:05

with Western countries were

12:07

asymmetrical and unfair.

12:09

In the early nineteen seventies, Because

12:11

of his policies to increase oil revenue,

12:14

Iran became economically very

12:17

powerful,

12:17

and so he became less

12:20

diplomatic started

12:21

essentially standing up to the outside

12:23

forces that had always tried to have

12:25

a piece of Iran.

12:26

The brown eyed people's are

12:29

teaching the blue eyed people

12:31

something. The blue eyed people

12:33

have

12:33

to wake up wake

12:34

up to from

12:36

his copper in which they put themselves by

12:39

taking maybe too many sleeping

12:41

pills. The shah

12:41

had great ambitions for Ibon.

12:44

but under a dictator, the people

12:46

still suffered. His secret

12:48

police detained,

12:49

tortured, or murdered

12:50

those who might threaten his

12:52

rule including his own citizens.

12:55

Forces inside and outside

12:57

of Iran collided. Iranian

13:00

citizens young and old rose

13:02

up and forced the shot of flee.

13:04

Women stood side by side with the men

13:06

facing the military's

13:07

tanks.

13:08

Today, We call it the seventy nine

13:10

revolution.

13:10

It

13:12

happened just three years after that

13:14

big sinatra

13:15

concert. We day here now the demonstration

13:17

that the rest go on. It

13:20

exploded, and the country turned

13:22

upside down. The

13:24

Islamic Koji saw a moment to take

13:26

advantage of an empty ruling

13:28

throne. They jumped in

13:30

and usurped power.

13:32

I'm gonna roll myself

13:35

up. And I'm big

13:37

ball. And

13:55

At

13:59

that time, my mother was

14:02

a freshman in college in

14:04

Iran. She was one of the teams on

14:06

the front lines of the revolution,

14:08

protesting for change in her miniskirt.

14:11

when her university shut down,

14:13

and the national army

14:15

switched allegiance to the clergy.

14:17

My

14:17

mom's family put her on a flight

14:19

out of the country. She left January

14:22

six in

14:22

nineteen seventy nine, the same day

14:25

that Shaw also left Iran.

14:27

She

14:27

arrived in Reno, Nevada, the

14:30

only city where she knew

14:32

anyone in America. When

14:34

she went to register for her

14:37

university classes, I saw this guy

14:39

with a beige kind

14:41

of

14:41

puffer jacket and some

14:43

slippers who've

14:44

totally looked American.

14:46

huge afro hair, and

14:49

it was kind of blandish, so

14:51

it didn't

14:51

look like PINK versions

14:54

with the darker. My

14:55

parents fell in

14:57

love with each other for

14:59

their American E1. Daddy

15:02

watched lots of

15:03

Queen's with movies, shows

15:05

like the

15:06

good dad and ugly, and Hitachi

15:08

come here and hit

15:09

the holes. He'd

15:12

better

15:12

be a cowboys? Yes. Yes. My

15:15

dad told me, he fell for my mom

15:17

because she reminded him of Barbara Eden

15:19

from I dream of genie. which he had

15:20

watch as a kid growing up in Iran.

15:25

Eden actually speaks Farsi in the

15:27

pilot episode.

15:28

again

15:31

Until the American astronaut

15:34

makes his first wish. Find a way to pee

15:36

the

15:36

master. You spoke English.

15:39

That that's all I had to do was say, I wish.

15:41

My

15:41

parents came into America thinking

15:43

the West loved them back. but

15:45

it

15:45

didn't take long for them to realize this

15:48

love was unrequited.

15:48

The special report that we planned

15:50

to bring you tonight was about domestic politics.

15:53

but crisis in Iran is more urgent

15:55

right now than the campaign here at home.

15:57

There was the hostage crisis of course. Hundred

15:59

young

15:59

people mainly studios Tehran

16:02

University have taken over the embassy.

16:04

All the Americans have been hostages

16:06

ever since. But even beyond that,

16:08

most of the Western media about the

16:10

Middle East was so hateful that

16:12

being

16:12

from Iran became a point

16:14

of shame. One of

16:15

the top gossiping films of my childhood

16:18

was TrueLive, with Arnold Swartznager

16:20

and Jamie Lee Curtis. I

16:22

remember watching it with my grandma who was

16:24

visiting at the time and getting

16:26

scrutiatingly embarrassed as the film dragged

16:29

on. My parents said their best to

16:31

block what was happening in their country,

16:33

from their minds, and

16:35

from me. They were even

16:37

somewhat relieved when upon entering

16:39

grade school. I

16:40

lost my ability

16:40

to speak farcey. just

16:44

like Barbara Eden in I dream of

16:46

Gini, which

16:46

is why my mom is translating for me

16:48

now. She mines almost three hours.

16:50

How much do I get paid? Thank you.

16:54

As I've

16:56

reported this story, I mostly

16:58

wanted to understand Wizena

17:01

and my mother.

17:02

Both now exiles held

17:04

onto memories of soccer as if

17:06

it were their homeland

17:08

itself. Zone up

17:16

says there is always

17:18

help in soccer.

17:21

Even in the weakest moments,

17:23

there is always that sliver

17:26

of hope and possibility

17:28

that we could win the match.

17:34

And this has

17:35

kept the love of soccer alive in her

17:37

to this

17:38

day. There

17:45

are times

17:45

when we feel like the game is over,

17:47

but in fact, it

17:49

is just getting started.

17:52

In

17:53

this

17:59

series, we are

17:59

going to meet three generations

18:02

of Iranian women who fought

18:04

millimeter

18:04

by millimeter for every bit

18:06

of freedom unfolding in Iran today.

18:09

Over forty

18:12

years

18:13

ago, these women were banned from

18:15

stadiums in Iran. Banned

18:16

from standing side by side as

18:19

equal Iranians. Banned

18:21

from the joy, the

18:23

exhilaration, the love in

18:24

watching a game. This is

18:27

the

18:27

story of how the women

18:29

took their stadiums back.

18:39

Next

18:42

episode, I'm going to take you inside

18:45

Iran. I was learning because

18:47

I was afraid that something happened.

18:50

I could die. This was

18:52

my fear. I'll show you

18:53

the diabolical way. the

18:55

women who revolution were forced

18:56

into submission overnight. I

18:59

was laughing. My daughter

19:01

was laughing. I couldn't

19:04

understand that, oh, this is

19:06

message.

19:06

What is the

19:07

meaning of that? The

19:09

joy was forbidden

19:11

basically. That

19:13

is how they control you.

19:23

Pink Card

19:24

was created and hosted by

19:26

me, Shimoliye, and our

19:28

associate

19:28

producer as homa Surabi.

19:31

Audio mixing, and original music is

19:33

by Ramtine Arabali, editing

19:35

by Sara Quevedo, Lisa

19:38

Azakizadeh, Rodar themed

19:40

song, Megan Rapino, Sue

19:42

Bird, and me, Shimoli,

19:44

our executive producers. Did you learn

19:46

it from someone? Did

19:47

you You're doing English?

19:49

Oh, but actually. Thank you

19:52

to my awesome

19:54

mom for translating. We had

19:56

additional help from Diva Motishan.

19:59

Our production

19:59

coordinator is Marissa Bravo. Thank

20:02

you, Janina Ansari, Miriam E1,

20:05

Minky Warden, Hadi Gallemi,

20:08

Rummy Golbang, Moiadad, Gucci

20:10

and Khajabi, Glovet Samosa,

20:12

Melinda Romero, Jasmine Ramzi,

20:14

and everyone at the center for human

20:16

rights in Iran. For thirty four

20:18

thirty Marsha Cook is executive

20:20

producer. Eve Tro is

20:22

senior editorial producer. Kath PINK

20:25

is

20:25

lime producer and Gus Navarro is

20:27

associate producer. Licensing support

20:29

from Jennifer Thor and director of

20:31

development is Adam Newhow

20:37

else.