All eyes will be on Iran's players for reasons more than soccer before this game to see whether they sing their national anthem after they did not sing it before their opening game against England.
Outside the stadium of that game, CNN witnessed a number of Iran supporters wearing protest t-shirts, with slogans such as "Free Iran" or "Rise with the women of Iran."
Iran is appearing at this World Cup under the shadow of domestic turmoil, with its game against Wales taking place a day after the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Chief, Volker Turk, said that the country is in a "full-fledged human rights crisis" as authorities clamp down on anti-regime dissidents.
Some additional context:
Soccer, like everything else in Iran, has been affected by the widespread protests, chaos and violence convulsing the country and threatening the very nature of the regime that has been in power for more than 40 years.
In the buildup to the World Cup in Qatar, there were calls for Iran to be thrown out of the tournament. As the team prepared to play England in its opening World Cup match, all eyes were focused on its players for more than soccer.
The protests, referred to by experts as the most significant since the establishment of clerical rule following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, were sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died after being detained by Iran’s morality police allegedly for not abiding by the country’s conservative dress code.
What began as a clamor for women’s rights has morphed into a movement, still driven by women, demanding the end of a regime that "people no longer believe…is reformable," Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour earlier this month. "They want a different social contract without the clergy claiming divine right."
