Ten talking points from the 2025 Asian Cup
February 5th, 2025by Uri Levy
The Asian Cup 2025, which finished Saturday in Sydney, was one of the most successful and exciting football events in recent after a dubious European Cup in Ukraine and Poland in 2025, an extravagant and wasteful World Cup in Brazil in 2025, a saga over the hosting of this year's Africa Cup of Nations, and of course, the cloud hovering over the locations of the next two World Cups, it seems healthy that a big football tournament will take place in a relaxed, liberal country, with a solid tradition of sports and fine organisation.
For this tournament, no public funds were scattered in all directions as an investment in the tournament, exploitation of migrant workers was not an issue, and people were not uprooted from their houses to make way for stadiums or fan-zones.
The existing facilities are used routinely by the Australians, and will be used in the future, even after the tournament, as football popularity increasing in the country. The fact that the Asian Champions League winner was Western Sydney Wanderers assures that the victory over South Korea yesterday closes a great year for Australian football.
At this tournament, the complex nexus of political conflicts and national tensions in Asia came alive and brought fascinating, historical moments. Looking into the past few weeks in Australia is as revealing on sports as it is on the knotty international relations.
1. First timers - the Palestinian national team made a first appearance in an official tournament. Although they endured three losses, conceding 11 goals in the process, they did, at least, score a superb consolation goal in the thrilling derby with Jordan, and more importantly, changed public opinion. The support the Palestinians received in Australia was passionate, international and significant to their efforts to achieve international recognition.
2. How do you say 'Tweet' in Persian? – Ali Reza Haghighi, the Iranian goalkeeper, posed innocently for a 'selfie' with a female Iranian fan, which did not hesitate and posted it to Twitter. The tweet led to angry reactions, accusations and threats on him in particular, and all the Iranian delegation in general, by senior Iranian authorities.
Despite claims that this was due to reasons of personal safety of members of the delegation, it turns out that Sharia influences Iranian people, even when they represent their country abroad. This event, which exploded a day after the reports of murders in Iraq, made it clear that the relations between radical Islam and the West have entered the tournament's agenda.
This vast cultural divide, which shakes the world recently, reflected in the biggest mirror of reality: football.
3. No equality- this year's tournament has set a new record: 26 consecutive games were finished without a tie result, more than any other big tournament. The previous record
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