Members of the Iranian national football team arrive at the airport in Tijuana, Mexico, wearing a golden pin with the number 168 [Getty]
Iran’s national football team arrived at its World Cup base camp in Mexico wearing gold lapel pins inscribed with “#168″, a tribute to the victims of a deadly missile strike on an elementary school in southern Iran that has become a defining symbol of the country’s war with the United States and Israel.
Players stepped off a flight from Turkey in the border city of Tijuana on Sunday wearing blue blazers and white T-shirts, each jacket bearing the small gold pin as they boarded a team bus before dawn.
The number refers to the 168 people killed, most of them young girls, when a strike hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in the southern Iranian port city of Minab on 28 February. The attack is widely attributed in Iran to the United States and occurred during the early stages of the current Middle East conflict.
Although the Trump administration has not formally acknowledged the American role in the strike, US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth promised to conduct a probe into the incident earlier in March in an announcement that the Washington Post described as a tacit acknowledgement of US involvement.
Iranian officials and state media have since elevated the Minab strike into a central wartime symbol. State outlets have repeatedly highlighted pink schoolbags as a symbol of mourning, while earlier this year the national team placed rows of children’s backpacks on the pitch during a friendly in Antalya, Turkey, as the national anthem played.
The pins worn in Tijuana echo that sentiment, extending the tribute onto World Cup soil at a time when Iran’s World Cup preparations have been affected by the fallout from the conflict.
Iran’s participation in the 2026 World Cup, which begins on 11 June and is being co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, has been overshadowed by tensions between Washington and Tehran.
About 15 officials, including Iran’s football federation president Mehdi Taj were denied visas, with the team now expected to face additional restrictions. Among them, the players will be allowed on US soil only on matchdays, and will be required to travel from their base in Mexico and return on the same day.
Iran will open their first World Cup game on 15 June in Los Angeles by playing against New Zealand.
