04/29/2006
Afshin Afshar, lastkick.com

Tehran is hosting a team of German footballers from Berlin. What makes this visit unusual is that the visitors are women.

The German women are visiting Tehran for a pair of friendly games the first of which against Iran’s women national team was played on Friday and ended in a 2:2 draw.

The match was watched by more than four thousand enthusiastic and noisy female fans that had come to cheer their pioneering heroes. Things, however, did not start well for the Iranians as the Germans took a two goal lead in the first half, but the hosts managed to fight back and tie in the second.

There is another interesting twist in this story.

Iranian women must wear uniforms designed to cover their arms, legs, and hair according to the Islamic laws. For these two matches, their German guests have agreed to wear similar uniforms in order to make the logistics easier to manage for the organizers.

After the match, the German team’s Turkish coach Mahtab Ardahanli told reporters that her players had a hard time adjusting to the uniforms, and that made it difficult for them to perform at their best. But she was also quick to credit Iranian women for their lively performance, and hoped that their visit would open the door for other teams from around the world.

Iran’s coach, Shahrzad Mozafar, was very happy with the result and reminded reporters that Iran’s women football is only in its eighth month, and is still struggling with many organizational and logistical problems. However, she was very optimistic that with time many of these obstacles will be eliminated. She

Iranian women made their debut about six months ago in the West Asian Women's Football Championships and finished runner-up to host country Jordan after losing 2-1 in a hotly contested final.

The Germans will face Iran’s U-19 on Saturday for their second friendly in that many days.