The surreal possibility hanging over Iran’s perilous World Cup campaign

Delving into the history books, glazing over a 96-year story of international football’s top-tier event, not much looks out of place in analysing Iraq’s triumvirate of one-goal defeats at the 1986 World Cup. Nor Argentina’s disappointing second group stage exit in 1982, when Diego Maradona first flirted with the globe’s greatest stage. Yet their significance, some four decades on, is now pertinent as the tournament takes place in the United States. Back then, Argentina an